Helplessness Low Income Families and Research Proposal

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Child development in low-income families, however, is indicative of the way learned helplessness applies to many different aspects of living in a low-income family. There is abundant evidence that children living in poverty have increased developmental issues and reduced mental abilities later in life (Campbell & Ramey 1994). It is also true that living in low-income situations makes children more likely to live in single-parent homes, meaning tat there is markedly reduced time for interaction with the child during the critical early years of development (Campbell & Ramey 1994). These are the components from which learned helplessness can be deduced.

Poverty, in a capitalist society, by definition means that there is a prohibitive reduction in the amount of resources available, and it has long been known that children living in poverty are less equipped to deal with the world as they grow, making it more likely that they will stay in poverty (Campbell & Ramey 1994). This relationship was well-known for decades, but the actual specific means by which poverty causes decreased cognitive performance was not always understood. Learned helplessness helps to explain this interaction, however. Children -- even infants -- have a basic need for cognitive stimulation and human interaction, requiring large amounts of time from parents, and when they do not receive adequate amounts of attention they may learn to simply not seek such stimulus (Campbell & Ramey 1994).

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Like the dogs that grew used to being shocked without any ability to control it, children in low-income families with low levels of stimulation get used to not engaging in cognitive activities. The dogs did not like being shocked -- they continued to whine even when they no longer resisted or attempted to escape -- but they accepted their negative situation (Shields 1997). The same is true of many children who grow up in low-income families; it is not that they are truly content with their reduced resources, but they learn to accept it and then do not even engage in the stimulus that becomes available to them later. This is learned helplessness in action, and it leads to markedly reduced rates of success for these children later in life -- they have learned that there is nothing to engage in, and so they continue to stay disengaged (and often become depressed) in adulthood (Campbell & Ramey 1994).

Learned helplessness is a very complex phenomenon with far reaching societal consequences. Child development is only one aspect of how this psychological mechanism affects low-income families, and more needs to be done to combat these effects......

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