Martin Seligman
American psychologist known for learned helplessness and positive psychology
American psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. With Steven Maier he reported learned helplessness in dogs in the 1960s, and after his 1998 election as president of the American Psychological Association he promoted positive psychology.
Why this person matters
The inescapable shock experiments by Maier and Seligman became a standard example in learning and in theories of depression. Seligman's later positive psychology work shifted research attention toward wellbeing. Both lines drew on collaborators, including Richard Solomon's laboratory, Maier and Christopher Peterson.
Main contributions
Learned helplessness
Maier and Seligman arrived at Penn as first-year graduate students in 1964, and the experiments were run in Richard Solomon's laboratory. Dogs received escapable shock, identical inescapable shock or none. Most dogs given inescapable shock later failed to escape. In 1967 they proposed that the animals had learned that their responses did not matter.
Positive psychology
Seligman was elected president of the American Psychological Association for 1998. With Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi he introduced positive psychology to the profession in a 2000 American Psychologist article. He directs Penn's Positive Psychology Center.
Revision of helplessness theory
In 2016 Maier and Seligman wrote that the original theory had it backwards. They argued that passivity is the default response to prolonged aversive stimulation, and that detecting control is what is learned.
Context and limits
The dog experiments caused distress. Maier and Seligman call them "a harrowing experience" and moved to other species. Seligman has said he consulted the philosopher Robert Nozick and judged the knowledge worth the pain; others, including the philosopher Alastair Norcross, have disagreed. Seligman also conceived the Army's $125 million Comprehensive Soldier Fitness programme. Psychologists Roy Eidelson, Marc Pilisuk and Stephen Soldz argued that soldiers took part without informed consent protections and that the techniques were only modestly effective in civilian studies.
In your introductory course
Learning.Learned helplessness appears in chapters on learning and on depression. Positive psychology appears in chapters on wellbeing, where students should note that the original theory has since been revised.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 14.5. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1964
He and Steven Maier arrived at the University of Pennsylvania as first-year graduate students.
- 1967
He completed his PhD and, with Maier, proposed that dogs had learned that shock was independent of their responses.
- 1998
He served as president of the American Psychological Association.
- 2000
He and Csikszentmihalyi introduced positive psychology in an American Psychologist article.
- 2016
Maier and Seligman published Learned Helplessness at Fifty in Psychological Review.
Sources
- University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, Martin E. P. SeligmanUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Maier and Seligman, Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience (Psychological Review, PMC)Original work. Text passages inspected.
- Martin Seligman, Data that opens countless doors (Daily Pennsylvanian, 2008)Original work. Text passages inspected.
- Scientific American, John Horgan on the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness programmePublisher. Text passages inspected.
- Claremont Graduate University, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi obituaryUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Martin SeligmanReference work. Reference article inspected.