Final answer:
Humans may become depressed when facing inescapable aversive events if they perceive these events as uncontrollable, which aligns with the concept of learned helplessness. The role of personal attributions is crucial in determining how individuals respond to stressors and their vulnerability to depression. Cognitive appraisals of events significantly affect the experience of stress, underscoring the subjective nature of stress reactions.
Step-by-step explanation:
Humans become depressed with inescapable aversive events but only if they perceive them as uncontrollable and unavoidable. This concept is known as learned helplessness, a term coined by psychologist Martin Seligman. In his experiments, Seligman discovered that dogs subjected to electric shocks without any means of escape subsequently failed to escape even when it became possible. Seligman drew a parallel to human behavior, suggesting that when people face negative life events they believe they cannot control, they may become helpless and potentially depressed.
The reformulated theory of learned helplessness emphasizes attributions, the explanations individuals make for the events in their lives. These attributions impact how people perceive control over their situation. If a person makes internal (beliefs about personal inadequacy), stable (beliefs that the situation will not change), and global (beliefs that failures are indicative of overall inadequacy) attributions for negative events, they are more likely to feel helpless and become prone to depression. However, training in healthy attribution habits can reduce vulnerability to depression.
Moreover, stress and its effects are subjective, depending on how one appraises an event. Stress is thus conceived as "in the eye of the beholder," and people's cognitive appraisals play a critical role in how they respond to stressors. These stressors can be either acute, such as a car accident, or chronic, such as ongoing discrimination, and the extent of their perceived controllability can influence psychological outcomes.