Learned Helplessness: A term coined by the psychologist Martin Seligman, who noted that animals that are restrained from escaping a noxious stimulus will learn to be helpless, and will remain inert even if the noxious stimulus is repeated when restraints are removed. Learned helplessness is a common tendency in humans, as they learn to be helpless towards things they cannot escape, such as death, taxes, traffic noise, whining kids, and psychobabble.
