learned helplessness
Britishnoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Better equipped to mother Boy No. 2 or stricken with learned helplessness from being coddled by an expert on my phone day in and day out?
From Slate • May 10, 2026
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s documentation of Stalinism strikes the same note: the elimination of a private existence away from politics, with the regime constantly forcing itself upon one’s attention, feeding each individual’s growing atomization and learned helplessness.
From Salon • May 24, 2025
You’re not the first person who has used the term learned helplessness.
From Slate • Mar. 17, 2025
A local psychologist is finishing a lecture on how to overcome "learned helplessness" and believe you have the power to change your life.
From BBC • Jun. 3, 2024
Such dangerous leaders and other pathocrats want us to surrender to learned helplessness and be in awe of their power.
From Salon • Feb. 20, 2024
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
