Learned Helplessness Case Study

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Imagine having been held captive for a week and your kidnapper finally decides to leave you alone for a few hours to go run some errands, but threatens to kill you if you escape. Do you risk the chance of dying in hopes of being able to escape in time or do you hopelessly remain a hostage to survive? In several kidnapping cases the victims chose not to escape because they developed a condition known as learned helplessness. Learned helplessness occurs when an animal or human has no control over an event due to an experience they have been conditioned to learn from. In the Cleveland kidnapping incident, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight were abducted from their regular lives. They experienced terrible conditions such as being …show more content…
This happens when the person who is kidnapped develops a bond with their assailant, which results in them becoming empathetic towards them. I believe this may have existed in Amanda Berry when she was asked whether or not she could forgive Castro. Although she really only forgave him in order to move on from the horrific experience, she also admitted she could do so because she was sympathetic towards him (Diaz et al., 2015). The connection between Stockholm syndrome and learned helplessness is very intriguing because the only way I can see the two effectively working together is if a victim pretends to rely on their captor to survive. It is shocking to picture someone truly being compassionate towards their own kidnapper because the intentions of the captive transforming into the role the kidnapper was seeking has manifested. Unless Berry, DeJesus, and Knight are constantly observed on for the rest of their lives, it is challenging to determine that if they encounter another form of weakness that it will be consistent, mild, or extreme, to what it was previously. Uselessness can form different ways in many types of people and animals especially depending on the circumstances. To assume that their reaction may be moderate to what it was before is hard to say because specific things can trigger a relapse of something that occurred and can result in a more extreme reaction of
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