Failure to escape traumatic shock.
Martin Seligman and Steven Maier reported the 1967 dog experiments in which animals given shocks they could not end later escaped poorly in a shuttle box. The design, as the 1976 review describes it, used a group that could end the shocks, a yoked partner group given the same shocks without control, and a group given no shocks. The 2016 abstract states that the authors then theorised that the animals learned that nothing they did mattered.
Martin Seligman and Steven Maier reported the 1967 dog experiments in which animals given shocks they could not end later escaped poorly in a shuttle box. The design, as the 1976 review describes it, used a group that could end the shocks, a yoked partner group given the same shocks without control, and a group given no shocks. The 2016 abstract states that the authors then theorised that the animals learned that nothing they did mattered.
Written from the the 1976 review of the first decade of work, and the 2016 abstract, read 2026-11-02.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Maier, S. F. (1967). Failure to escape traumatic shock. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74(1), 1-9. doi:10.1037/h0024514