Motivation & Learned helplessness (Feedback: 6 positive for 1 negative)

Ring a bell, shock a dog.  

Most people have heard about Pavlov's Dogs.  Most are familiar with the iconic experiment where Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate when he rang a bell. But most are not familiar with some of the follow up experiments. One such experiment by Seligman took place in 1965. He created the opposite experiment. He rang a bell and gave the dogs an electric shock. Awful, I know. All the details of the experiment are not important for the purposes of this post, except what he learned around motivation. He learned that once the dogs were conditioned to the bell and shock that even when the opportunity to escape existed they did not. They just braced for the shock when they heard the bell. They had lost all motivation. Seligman was taken by surprise, he did not expect this result and coined it Learned helplessness. 

People can be just like these dogs. Many studies and experiments following his work, found similar results.  If people are given a stimulus followed by a negative response then over time we just give up, give in, and accept it. We feel our attempts to do something about it or improve the situation are futile. We accept nihilism over optimism.  Terrible. This has been proven again & again. One extreme example is when a prisoner is repeatedly tortured they do not take the easy escape when offered. I know this is extreme. But this principle plays out in everyday life all the time. 

Believe it or not, I witness learned helplessness playing out at the rink all the time. Albeit a much, much lesser version of it, but nonetheless it happens. The stimulus, a hockey game, is followed by negative comments made by parents & coaches.  If the kids continue to hear comments about how poorly they played then they just simply give up, give in, and accept they can do nothing about it.  

But quite simply, nothing could be further from the truth.  Kids need positive reinforcement & encouragement.  Tell the kids the things they did that you did like.  Focus on how well they passed during the game, or how well they covered their man or whatever you did see that was positive. Recent studies tell us that kids should get 6 positive pieces of feedback for every 1 negative item.  Remember this for that ride home in the car after the game.  You may feel that you're helping your child by pointing out what went wrong, but it can blow up in your face if not done properly.  If you feel there really is something that needs to be discussed, and you still want to keep the kids motivated.  Then remember this very simple formula for success, science backs it up.

Good Luck!

Coach Chris