The history of the discovery of the phenomenon of learned helplessness. In the mid-1960s, the American scientist Martin Seligman, working in the psychological laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania, conducted research under the direction of Richard Solomon ( Richard Solomon). Experimental studies were based on the ideas of the Russian physiologist, Nobel laureate I.P. Pavlov and demonstrated the formation of conditioned reflexes in dogs. The main idea of ​​M. Seligman's experiment was the formation of a conditioned fear reflex in dogs to a high-pitched sound. To do this, the high-pitched sound was accompanied by a not strong, but very sensitive electric shock. M. Seligman assumed that the dogs would try to avoid him, but the dogs behaved atypically: they lay down on the floor and whined, although they had the opportunity to jump out of the box. M. Seligman suggested that this behavior is associated with the dogs' past experience, since earlier during the experiment the dogs could not jump out of the box and avoid a painful electric shock. The dogs got used to the inevitability of electric shock and realized that they could not influence the situation. They have developed a syndrome of learned helplessness [4].M. Seligman doubted the possibility of extrapolating the findings to humans. However, already in the 1970s, a number of experiments were carried out confirming the ideas of M. Seligman. Donald Hiroto found that people who were once faced with a situation in which they found themselves helpless became helpless again and again in a new situation. Thus, it became possible to say that the phenomenon discovered by M. Seligman also manifests itself in human behavior. Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin conducted a study of elderly people in a private hospital. The researchers divided the patients into two groups. The patients of the hospital were cared for equally. However, patients in one group could choose, for example, what to eat for breakfast or which flowers to cut in the garden. In order to get into the cinema, they had to sign up for the screening in advance (that is, they had to show some activity). The patients of the second group continued to be cared for as was customary in the hospital before: a nurse brought flowers to the room, they could go to the cinema without an appointment, etc. That is, patients of the first and second groups received identical care, but at the same time, patients of the second group were less responsible for their stay in the hospital. After a few months, it turned out that those patients who could choose and control the situation were more active and felt happier. Moreover, fewer patients died in this group. It was concluded that the state of helplessness and lack of control over at least part of one’s life negatively affects both the psychological and somatic state of a person. German psychologist Julius Kuhl asked students to solve intellectual problems that had no solution, but students didn't know about it. After a series of unsuccessful attempts, most subjects fell into anxiety and despair, their self-esteem fell and learned helplessness formed. After this, the students were asked to solve a simple problem, but they could no longer solve it; learned helplessness prevented this (see, for example: N.V. Solntseva [6]). Thus, the studies of M. Seligman and his followers showed that learned helplessness can develop not only in animals, but also in people. Optimism and pessimism in the context of the phenomenon of learned helplessness. M. Seligman also discovered the phenomenon of conscious optimism. The scientist suggested that in relation to their own lives and current events, people are divided into two large groups: optimists and pessimists. Pessimism may be a consequence of learned helplessness. If a person finds himself helpless in a situation several times, he may lose faith in the positive outcome of the situation andstart looking at your own life pessimistically. M. Seligman writes: “The basis of pessimism is helplessness. Helplessness is a state in which any of your actions are unable to influence what is happening” [4, p. 15].M. Seligman describes in detail two types of people: pessimists and optimists. Pessimists believe that failures will accompany them throughout their lives, and they tend to blame themselves for everything. This attitude towards life contributes to the development of depression. Optimists, on the contrary, are confident that failure is a temporary phenomenon, and believe that the cause of bad luck is not themselves, but other people or circumstances. At the same time, optimists are ready to fight the situation again and again, achieving success [4]. Separately, M. Seligman considers such a significant problem as maintaining health. He describes a psychosomatic approach to maintaining health through the concepts of “optimism” and “pessimism.” The immune system of optimists functions much better than the immune system of pessimists; optimists are less likely to catch infections, have fewer bad habits and live longer. Thus, M. Seligman’s research shows the importance of an optimistic attitude in life for an individual. Markers of learned helplessness. How to determine the presence/absence of learned helplessness in children and adults? St. Petersburg psychologist N.V. Solntseva [6] believes that the presence of learned helplessness is determined using marker words that a person uses in speech. She identifies six groups of marker words in adults. However, our experience of working with children shows that these same markers are typical for children of preschool and school age. Therefore, listing below the marker words highlighted by N.V. Solntseva, we do not give the author’s examples concerning adults, but our examples concerning manifestations of learned helplessness in children.1. “I can’t” (draw, tie shoelaces, ask someone else for a toy, learn a poem, solve a problem, etc.).2. “I don’t want to” (play the piano, get dressed and go for a walk). “I don’t want” is a derivative of “I can’t.” The child’s awareness that he cannot do something (or it seems to him that he cannot) demonstrates his experience of being “bad”, a “loser” who will not succeed anyway. Then the wording “I don’t want” helps to get rid of the discomfort associated with “I can’t.” “I don’t want” is a defense, a denial of “I can’t” under the guise of “I don’t want.”3. “Always” (I’m always awkward, I always fall off my bike, I always ruin everything, I always cry, I always draw ugly).4. “Never” (I will never learn to read, I will never be able to learn to skate).5. “Everything is useless” (“I won’t succeed in anything”, “no matter how hard you try, it’s all to no avail”).6. “Everyone in our family is like that” (family messages can demonstrate different sides of reality, but in general they reflect the idea of ​​predetermined fate and the impossibility of avoiding the fate that is intended for all family members: “in our family everyone has poor hearing”, “in our family everyone is a humanitarian , no one had more than a C in mathematics and physics,” “everyone in our family has poor eyesight,” “everyone in our family has poor health”). So, learned helplessness manifests itself in a lack of initiative, a reluctance to do anything, change the situation. Education of learned helplessness in children. M. Seligman's research concerned not only adult dogs, but also puppies. He found that dogs that have developed learned helplessness pass this trait on to their puppies. Thus, puppies do not even try to overcome difficult situations, they simply patiently endure electric shocks, although in reality they could avoid them. It turns out that parents teach their own children to submit to fate. M. Seligman himself, having received these shocking results, began to think about the question of how parents raise optimism and pessimism in children. In his book “The Optimist Child. A proven character building program" [5] he describes and analyzes examples of the formation of learned helplessness and,respectively, optimism/pessimism in the child. The author writes: “The task of your child is, under the tutelage of attentive parents, to acquire the habit of facing difficulties without fear and overcoming them” [5, p. 20].How is learned helplessness formed in children? How do parents contribute to the development of learned helplessness in a child? Let’s give a few examples and analyze them. Example 1. When Rimma was one year old, she tried to grab a spoon, but her mother wouldn’t let her (it seemed to her that it was easier to feed the child herself, because then she didn’t have to remove all kitchen). When Rimma was one and a half years old and wanted to dress herself, her mother still preferred to quickly dress her daughter herself. If Rimma climbed a hill, she would definitely hear: “You’re still small, you’ll fall off, don’t climb there.” You couldn’t cut with scissors because they were sharp, you couldn’t help your mom wash the dishes because Rimma might break a glass, etc. Rimma is now seven years old. Mom packs her school bag for school, because Rimma “will definitely forget something,” teaches homework with her, and when mom asks Rimma to tidy up the room, she usually hears: “You better tidy up, you’ll do better”... As we see , the formation of learned helplessness in this case was facilitated by the mother. Children from an early age are proactive, want to do everything themselves, want to touch and use different things. Kids are attracted to all the objects that are around them, and they happily do everything that adults do. One of the important needs of a child is cognition, which is carried out through interaction with the objective world, as well as imitation of parents. And if adults do not satisfy this need of the child, then he stops showing initiative. And, conversely, encouraging a child’s initiative helps to increase his curiosity, activity and independence. Example 2. Valya is five years old. She is learning to knit. It doesn’t work out very well, the loops slip off, and she cries from time to time. Grandma gets tired of having to lift the hinges every five minutes and simply finishes the job for Valya. Grandma, of course, wanted “what’s best.” She completed Valya’s work, but it was important for the girl to do it herself. What did Valya learn? That she is an incompetent who will never learn to knit as well as her grandmother. Which means there’s nothing to start with. Example 3. Anya is four years old. She draws a house and her mother. Anya wants to draw her mother beautifully, like in the picture in the book. But it doesn’t work out beautifully. Hands are sticks, head is too big. Anya wanted to draw long eyelashes for her mother, but they turned out too long, above her head. Anya gets upset and almost cries: “Mom, I can’t do anything, it’s not pretty.” Mom feels sorry for Anya, and she rushes to the rescue: “What are you saying, Anya, it turned out very, very beautiful. Look how long my eyelashes are and how beautiful my lips are. This is the best drawing. You are a real artist." Anya looks at her mother with disbelief, but agrees. What has the situation taught the girl? First, accept outright lies. Anya sees that her drawing is far from the height of perfection. Secondly, Anya is not trying to learn how to draw better. Thirdly, the mother focused on the fact that the girl did not succeed at all, and did not pay attention to the fact that she did well. And the dress turned out really beautiful and bright. Anya carefully colored the drawing. And the house turned out to be quite nice. But the girl’s mother did not pay attention to this. Example 4. Oleg is eight years old. From early childhood he helped his mother. When mom was cooking, Oleg used a small plastic knife to cut potatoes into the soup (mom had previously cut the potatoes into strips so that it would be convenient for Oleg to cut cubes from the strips). If mom was baking pancakes, Oleg would help her make the dough: mom would stir, and he would pour flour from the bag into a bowl with a spoon. And it doesn’t matter that everything was done slowly, the flour crumbled, and the potatoes in the soup were cut not into cubes, but into incomprehensible pieces of different sizes. Mom always praised Oleg and thanked him for his help. At the same time, they always managed to do everything. Probably because the mother knew her son well andShe always distributed her time in such a way as to give Oleg the opportunity to get involved in her activities. If she was going to iron the clothes, she first informed her son, who, of course, also wanted to iron. Then mom would get Oleg an iron, cover a small table with a blanket, and for 5–10 minutes she could calmly do other things. After the satisfied Oleg finished “stroking”, the mother began to stroke herself. Her son did not distract her because he managed to satisfy his needs and played calmly. Always like this. Mom allowed Oleg to wash the floor, wipe the dust, and wash the dishes. They also went to the store together, and the boy carried some of the purchases himself, in a small bag. Now Oleg is a schoolboy. This is not to say that he is always organized, does not forget anything and does not need to be controlled at all. No, he is an ordinary boy without learned helplessness syndrome. Thus, parents play a significant role in the formation of learned helplessness in a child. M. Seligman himself believed that learned helplessness in children develops around the age of eight and can remain for the rest of their lives. That is, even in adulthood, such a person will prefer not to get down to business, because “nothing will work out anyway.” Peculiarities of the formation of learned helplessness in boys and girls. The problem of the formation of learned helplessness in the gender aspect deserves special attention. Parents and teachers are often guided by gender stereotypes when raising children (Guseva Yu.E. [1]). Namely, by encouraging masculine activities in boys to a greater extent than feminine ones, and in girls, on the contrary, parents contribute to the formation of learned helplessness in children. Example 5. Sasha and Katya are twins. They are six years old. Recently my mother taught Katya to knit. Katya didn’t work out very well: the knitting needles were jumping out of the loops, everything was unraveling. But her mother patiently showed her again and again how to support the thread with her fingers and how to knit each loop. And she encouraged her, saying that she would definitely learn. Mom told Katya that she herself, too, could not learn for a long time and even thought that she would never learn, her knitted things were ugly, but after a while she began to get better, and now she can knit very nice things. Sasha, of course, also wanted to learn. And I even tried it. I took threads and knitting needles from Katya. Only this turned out to be difficult. And mom didn't help. She said: “You know, son, you’re unlikely to be able to learn how to knit. To learn how to knit, you need patience and perseverance, and men don’t have them. And in general, knitting is not a man’s business. Men can’t do this.” Sasha no longer tried to do “women’s” things. It won't work anyway, he's a boy! Much the same thing happens in the kitchen. Mom actively enlists Katya to help in the kitchen: she cuts vegetables, stirs dough, and helps wash dishes. If Katya doesn’t succeed in something, her mother teaches her quite patiently. If Sasha tries to join Katya in the kitchen and help, his mother agrees, gives him a knife, but after a few minutes she notices that he is unable to cut accurately, or that he has spilled water again. “You won’t learn, you’re a boy, dad can’t even fry eggs properly.” Sasha leaves the kitchen in full awareness of her worthlessness, and Katya, with renewed energy, continues to help her mother, receiving a double portion of praise from her. One can assume that Sasha will not even try to sew on a button or cook soup. After all, he has learned that there are things that he is not capable of because he is a boy (a future man). Sasha has developed a syndrome of learned helplessness regarding activities that are traditionally attributed to women. Mom does not expect her son to learn to do “women’s” work. She expects this from her daughter. That’s why he focuses on his daughter’s successes and his son’s failures in feminine activities, confirming his expectations again and again. Mom doesn’t even suspect that she herself brings them to life. Naturally, learned helplessness candevelop not only in boys, but also in girls. Example 6. Sasha and Katya ride two-wheeled bicycles. Their bikes are the same, but Sasha does it better. Maybe because he is more capable than Katya, or maybe because when they were just learning to ride, dad always said that Sasha was doing great because he was a boy, and boys were more capable in everything related to transport and technology. Dad didn’t praise Katya, he said that women drive cars worse and are not so good at riding a bike. Note that both a boy and a girl can learn to ride a bicycle equally well. However, parents can both help the child, set him up optimistically, and, on the contrary, hinder him, convince him of his inability to perform any type of activity. Not only adults can influence the child. Children themselves often contribute to the emergence of learned helplessness in each other, transmitting traditionally patriarchal gender stereotypes. Example 7. In kindergarten, Denis (6 years old) saw girls embroidering and also wanted to learn how to embroider. Tanya (5 years 6 months), who happily taught all the girls to embroider, did not help Denis. She said: “Boys don’t know how to embroider, that’s for girls.” And only the intervention of the teacher calmed the situation. The teacher said: “Not quite like that. Anyone can learn to embroider. There are men who embroider and knit very well. Denis, let me show you how to embroider.” The teacher showed Denis's first work to all the children. After this, many boys in the group began to embroider. So, learned helplessness may be associated with the biological sex of the child. For example, girls are told that they are not good at math or physics because they are girls. And boys regularly hear that they write dirty and sloppy because they are boys. As a result, girls do not try to become better than boys in the exact sciences (although many could), and boys do not try to be neat. A number of other examples can be given, but this does not make sense; such examples are regularly encountered in everyday life. We will turn to the consequences of the formation of learned helplessness in boys and girls. Growing up, a boy or girl, being a carrier of learned helplessness syndrome, often does not even try to perform activities that traditionally do not correspond to their biological sex. Thus, men try not to interfere in child care, considering this area to be exclusively “female,” and women do not try to delve into technical issues related to the repair of household appliances, considering this area, accordingly, “male.” Is it possible to overcome learned helplessness and to form an optimistic attitude towards life in a child? M. Seligman himself asked this question, and his further experiments were related to overcoming learned helplessness in dogs. M. Seligman began teaching dogs to jump out of a box, despite the animals' resistance. After some time, the dogs began to jump out of the box on their own. Their learned helplessness was overcome. Psychophysiologists V.S. Rotenberg and V.V. Arshavsky developed the concept of human search activity [3]. According to the authors, search behavior counters learned helplessness. People cannot always be sure of the positive results of their activities. In such a situation, a person with learned helplessness will refuse further actions or indulge in panic. On the contrary, an optimistic person with search activity will adequately evaluate intermediate results on the way to the final goal, learn lessons from them, and change their behavior in accordance with objective reality. The main way to overcome learned helplessness in preschoolers is to develop an optimistic attitude in life and a desire to engage in various types of activities. It is important for children to gain a variety of life experiences, including experience of overcoming failures and successful behavior. How to motivate children to succeed? How to teachovercome difficulties? One of the significant mistakes that adults make is comparing children with each other and demonstrating personal experience. If a child fails to do something, and adults use expressions such as: “look, Sasha already knows how to ride a bike,” “I also didn’t know how to hammer nails, but then I learned,” etc., the child begins to feel unsuccessful, he develops a pessimistic attitude. He compares himself with someone who already knows how to do something, and it seems to him that he will never learn to do everything as well. In order to avoid unequal comparisons, it is more effective to compare the child with himself in the past. When working with preschoolers, we suggest parents and teachers use the “when you were little” technique. This technique helps the child see not only what he has learned over the years of his life, but also the prospects for growth. An adult must tell the child about what he did not know how to do before, but has now learned. Try to tell in detail, emotionally, you can add a little fiction. For example, you are going to make an applique, and a three-year-old girl says: “I won’t cut it out, I won’t succeed anyway. You cut well, you cut better.” What to do? Tell your child a story. - Do you want me to tell you about how you couldn’t drink from a cup? - I want to. - So. You were little. You weren't even one year old yet. You were sitting on a high chair, and I gave you some water in a cup. Do you know what you did? You took the cup, turned it over and poured all the water on the table. And do you know what you started doing? Splash your hands in the water! That's how funny you were! Are you throwing out the water now? No, you drink from a cup well and very carefully. Because you learned. She's grown up. And I trained many times. Previously, you always wet yourself when you drank, but now you don’t. Previously, you didn’t know how to take off your socks, but now you can not only take them off, but also put them on, you’re very good at dressing. Save your children’s drawings and their crafts. You can compare old and current drawings. When teaching writing, be sure to save your old copybooks. Children enjoy looking at the squiggles they wrote some time ago and compare them with the current result. All this increases the child’s self-confidence, increases motivation, the desire to do something himself, and creates an optimistic attitude. Recommendations for teachers and parents on overcoming learned helplessness and creating an optimistic attitude in life in boys and girls.1. Give children the opportunity to engage in various activities that interest the child, including those traditionally not corresponding to his biological sex.2. It is inappropriate to use gender-stereotypical phrases that contribute to the formation of learned helplessness: “boys usually (always) hammer nails better than girls,” “all girls are good at embroidery,” “it is more difficult for a boy to learn to wash dishes than for a girl.”3. It is important to focus on the individual characteristics of the child, and not on his biological sex. You shouldn’t say: “Valya knits well and doesn’t know how to hammer nails because she’s a girl.” It’s better to say: “Valya likes to knit more and she’s great at it, but she’s not very interested in hammering nails. Perhaps later she will want to learn this too.”4. Expand the child’s life experience by observing the surrounding reality. If it is difficult to find examples in real life, you can use works of fiction in which men and women are engaged in gender-non-stereotypical activities.5. Do not ignore the gender-stereotypical statements of children (“you’re a girl, you can’t saw it off, better let me saw it off”, etc.). More often emphasize the opportunity for every child, regardless of biological sex, to learn various types of activities. Literature Guseva Yu.E. Gentle boys, strong girls... Education free from gender stereotypes. St. Petersburg: Vector, 2015. Romek V.G. Psychological counseling in a situation of learned helplessness // Psychological counseling:. 34-43.