Basic Research and its (Mis)Use

Chris Garling

Haverford College

Introduction

There has been controversy surrounding the violent interrogation methods of the

CIA, FBI, and other American intelligence agencies for years ever since the terrorist events

of 9/11. However, it has been rare for tortuous interrogation techniques to be linked to

academia–but that is what McCoy (2014) has done. He has reported that the CIA used

techniques derived from Seligman & Maier (1967), a paper originally intended to study and

document “learned helplessness,” to coax information regarding terrorist activities from

captives. With this in mind, what I present is an overview of the scientific merits of the

original paper, as well as a comparison of how the results were used clinically and how they

were used by the CIA, with commentary on what we can learn from this abuse of theory.

Seligman & Maier (1967) Summary

The original paper by Seligman & Maier (1967) studied whether dogs would act to

escape shocks or not, with a dependence on the type of training they received. One group

of dogs was trained that the shocks were escapable–they were placed in a harness, where

if they pushed a panel with their heads, the shock would stop. Another group of dogs was

trained that the shock was inescapable–the shocks occurred whether they hit the panel or

not–the dogs were “helpless” (Seligman & Maier, 1967). There was a third “normal” group

that received no training.

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Twenty-four hours after training, the dogs in both groups were given an escape test.

Individually, the dogs were placed into one of two boxes separated by a wall they could

maneuver over. The dogs were placed into the first of the two boxes and a shock was

applied through the floor. At this point, they could go over the wall into the second box to

escape the shock, but if they stayed in the first box, the shock would continue.

Overmier & Seligman (1967) had previously shown that “prior exposure of dogs to

inescapable shock in a Pavlovian harness reliably results in interference with subsequent

escape/avoidance learning in a shuttle box,” (Seligman & Maier, 1967, pg. 1) so Seligman

& Maier hypothesized that dogs trained with escapable shocks would escape from the test

box at higher rates than dogs trained with inescapable shocks. These are exactly the results

they found–dogs trained with inescapable shocks failed the escape test at a much higher

rate than dogs trained with escapable shocks. Seligman & Maier thus showed evidence for

“learned helplessness,” the idea that individuals exposed to harmful stimuli become less

willing to avoid these stimuli over time.

Seligman & Maier (1967) Evaluation

This paper is considered to be the classic exhibition of learned helplessness, and has

only been accepted as such because of the quality of the research and results found. However,

by looking at this publication critically and citing both its strengths and weaknesses, we

can investigate the methods and results and decide for ourselves whether or not they are

robust.

There were actually two experiments conducted in the paper, but we are primarily

concerned with experiment 1, as this is the experiment that the news article by McCoy

discusses. As such, I will not comment on experiment 2.

We will begin with an analysis of the subject selection process. Seligman & Maier

(1967) began with 30 “experimentally-naive, mongrel dogs,” and eliminated six from the

total to end up with 24 dogs, eight in each of three groups: the “yoked” group, which

were subjected to unescapable shocks in the harness, the “escape” group, which were able

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to terminate shocks in the harness by pressing a panel with their heads, and the “normal”

group, which received no harness training and were only tested in the shuttle box apparatus.

Two dogs were discarded because they were too short to be properly held in the harness,

one dog died during testing, one dog was eliminated due to “procedural error,” and two

dogs were discarded because “they failed to learn to escape shock in the harness” (Seligman

& Maier, 1967).

I found this explanation lacking, and Seligman & Maier explained their reasoning in

a footnote: “It might be argued that eliminating these two dogs would bias the data. Thus

naive dogs which failed to learn the panel-press escape response in the harness might also

be expected to be unable to learn shuttle box escape/avoidance. One of these dogs was

run 48 hr. later in the shuttle box. It escaped and avoided normally. The other dog was

too ill to be run in the shuttle box 48 hr. after it received shock in the harness” Seligman

& Maier (1967). In other words, what happened was that these two dogs never learned

that pressing the panel when they were being shocked in the harness would stop the shock.

Thus, they would perceive the shocks as inescapable because they never learned how to

escape them. Seligman & Maier were concerned that this misconception by the dogs would

influence their findings, because the shocks were supposed to be escapable–therefore, they

eliminated them from the testing pool. To me, this seems a reasonable conclusion and I

don’t think it would influence the results. In fact, in order for the results to be valid, all the

dogs in the escape group would need to learn that the shock was escapable–that was the

whole point of their group, and if the researchers included dogs that didn’t learn that, then

I believe their results may have been skewed. Seligman & Maier also reported that one of

the dogs, despite not learning the escape procedure in the harness correctly, did actually

escape normally in the shock box testing apparatus. Thus, it is possible including these

dogs may not have influenced results, but I think it was best to remove them.

Moving on to experimental methods, I think using the harness with a panel-press

for shock termination was a very reasonable way to train the dogs. Also, the dogs in the

yoked group were only subjected to shocks of the average length of those experienced by

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the escape group, so each group received the same amount of shock on average, and this

also seems like the correct way to handle shock durations. As such, I think a strength of

this experiment was the uniformity with which the yoked and escape groups were treated.

The only variable that was different between the groups was whether or not they were able

to terminate the shocks on their own. I think this was well-controlled. The use of the

normal group was also well-implemented. That being said, I thought a major difficulty in

understanding this paper, at least for the psychology novice, was that the reasoning behind

their methods was not well-explained–that is, they told us what they did, but not why they

did it. For me this became a specific issue in the transition between the training harness

and the testing shuttle box.

I understand that the type of harmful stimuli in each situation was the same–in both

cases, shocks were administered, but the two environments were very different. In the

harness, the dogs could not move except to hit the panel with their heads. In the shuttle

box, the dogs had room to move around, and to escape the shock, they had to climb over

a wall. What I didn’t understand was why the shuttle box was chosen to be the testing

apparatus. It is different in nature from the training harness. Was this intentional? Did they

want to study how individuals who experience negative stimuli in one area then translate

that experience beyond their immediate surroundings? To me it seems the obvious test is

to put the yoked dogs back in the harness, but to this time enable the escape mechanism

of the panel. Then they would be in the exact same situation, but with the opportunity to

escape. Is this not what they wanted to study? Because this experimental procedure would

certainly study a different phenomenon than what Seligman & Maier did.

By moving the dogs into another environment for the testing, I think they really

studied how pervasive this phenomenon of learned helplessness is. What they found is

that when dogs are trained that a negative stimuli is inescapable in one situation, the dogs

then have a mitigated escape response to this same negative stimuli even in a different

environment. To me, this seems much more telling than if they had simply put the yoked

dogs back in the harness but enabled the escape panel. What they showed is that learned

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helplessness is a phenomenon that transcends situation and can cause a decreased escape

response in other areas of one’s life, and this is much more revealing than simply showing

that learned helplessness decreases an individual’s tendency to try to escape the same

situation.

Thus, I believe this part of the experiment to be both a strength and a weakness. It

is a strength because this change from the training to the testing environment shows that

learned helplessness transcends physical situation, but it is a weakness because they do not

explain their reasoning. They simply say “here is what we did and here are the results”

with what I felt was inadequate explanation and discussion. I think the paper could have

been much stronger if they explained the implications of the work more fully, especially as

pertains to suggestions for future research, as they offer very few.

Ethical Questions

While Seligman & Maier offer next to no ideas for future research in their paper, the

way they documented the phenomenon of learned helplessness has provided a basis for much

future work. Scientists have applied the learned helplessness model to other phenomena

within psychology quite robustly–especially as pertains to depression. Peterson & Seligman

(1984) studied learned helplessness in the context of depression and concluded,“The cross-

sectional studies showed that a characteristic way of explaining bad events with internal,

stable, and global causes co-occurs with depressive symptoms.” In particular, when organ-

isms were faced with hardships that they could do nothing to mitigate (external causes),

Seligman & Maier (1967) showed that this correlates with a lessened response against the

hardship, and Peterson & Seligman (1984) showed this correlates with depression in hu-

mans. An important clinical conclusion from Peterson & Seligman (1984) was that the

manner in which an individual explains a bad event has a large impact on whether they

experience subsequent depression or not. Depending on whether the individual blames her-

self or an external source for bad events has a great effect on the extent of depression she

may experience, and this has become an important theory in the treatment of depression.

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Thus we see the theory of learned helplessness has had a great impact on the world

of psychology and has helped clinicians treat patients with depression. However, this same

research has been repurposed for the intention of inducing learned helpless in the CIA’s

captives, and Seligman himself responded to the use of his research with disappointment:

“I am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome

depression, may have been used for such bad purposes” McCoy (2014). This brings up

questions of ethics both on the end of basic research and of application, amounting to asking

where the responsibility lies to mitigate the abuse of psychological theory as documented

by McCoy–whether it be in the researcher who discovers the theory or in the practitioner

who uses it.

It seems to me that to answer this question of ethics we have to consider the good

and the bad effects of the theoretical groundwork on which these applications were based.

As I have pointed out, the theory of learned helplessness has assisted many psychologists

in helping patients with depression lessen their symptoms–it has proven an important facet

of the field that helps explain why people in bad situations don’t leave them, and also

has implications for helping people out of abusive relationships. However, by documenting

learned helplessness, Seligman & Maier have opened the door for people to use the research

in ways it was not intended: by creating states of learned helplessness as an interrogation

tactic. Thus we see that basic research, which does nothing but attempt to document

phenomena, results in both positive and negative outcomes. We must decide if the good

outweighs the bad, and I believe that is the case.

The article offers no solid opinion either way or the other, but ends with a snarky

comment poking at Jim Mitchell, one of the psychologists suspected of working with the

CIA on this learned helplessness interrogation project. The article’s tone leads me to think

McCoy believes the interrogation tactics were cruel, and blames the CIA psychologists for

the overstep–by including Seligman’s quote about how “grieved and horrified” he was at

this misuse of research, I believe McCoy does not blame Seligman for the interrogation

tactics (2014). I take the same side. We cannot cease research for fear of misuse, as we

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have generally observed that the positive outcomes of basic research outweigh the negative.

Conclusion

As a species, we thrive on advancement, and we cannot forgo that in fear of what

we may discover. At least, that is what my time in science, limited as it may be, has

taught me. When I look at the way Seligman & Maier (1967) was written, it is clear to me

that they had no intention of applying their findings for ill purposes–they merely wished to

research a phenomenon and attempt to document it. They were interested in the science,

in discovery–their intentions seem to have been pure, and their research has been used to

help many people. It is with the CIA psychologists our blame must lie, and it is in the

application of theory that we must rest the responsibility of ethical use. It is impossible for

basic researchers to police the use of their work, and it is unadvisable for our future to cease

basic research. Therefore, all we can do is to be mindful of stories like this when applying

theory onward.

References

McCoy, T. (2014, December). Learned helplessness: The chilling psychological con-

cept behind the CIA’s interrogation methods. Washington Post . Retrieved from

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/11/the-chilling

-psychological-principle-behind-the-cias-interrogation-methods/

Overmier, B., & Seligman, M. (1967, February). Effects of inescapable shock upon subsequent

escape and avoidance responding. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology , 63 (1),

28-33.

Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. (1984, November). Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression:

Theory and evidence. Psychological Review , 91 (3), 347-374.

Seligman, M., & Maier, S. (1967, May). Failure to escape traumatic shock. Journal of Experimental

Psychology , 74 (1).