Learned Helpness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Learned Helpness - Essay Example These may cause employees to feel that success or recognition is unattainable, thereby inhibiting motivation to improve their performance levels2. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to investigate learned helplessness among employees in organizations, and examine the creation of desirable motivation states through management interventions such as motivation, and empowerment and resilience, to eliminate learned helplessness among employees. Lyn Abramson and her team suggested that objective events in themselves do not produce learned helplessness. How those events are interpreted, particularly how their attributional dimensions are perceived, play an important part. Usually, the situations that produce learned helplessness give rise to only momentary symptoms of depression, unless there already exists a ‘depressive explanatory style’3. Besides generalizing from an unpleasant experience resulting in passive acceptance of situations, another approach to the theory of learned helplessness underscores a reinforcement process as its basis. That is, when particular behaviors lead to desired rewards and outcomes, people are motivated to repeat those behaviors. The motivation to perform those behaviors is lost when the specific behaviors do not help to achieve desired outcomes4. For example, when a manager regularly takes credit for her subordinates’ successes, while blaming them for their failures, the employees may lose their motivation to work harder than is necessary to keep their jobs. Similarly, when an organization enforces the use of outdated and ineffective procedures resulting in failed outcomes, employees may show little urgency or interest in their work5. The significance of organizationally induced learned helplessness is that â€Å"It often remains even when the barriers to success are removed†6. Consequently, when an unfair manager or restrictive policies are removed, employee motivation and