Learned helplessness is when a person begins to believe they have no control over a situation, even when they do. The mantra of the person who suffers from learned helplessness is: "What's the point in trying?"
Learned helplessness was studied in 1965 by psychologist Martin Seligman while he was studying the behaviour of dogs. In the experiment, designed to be a variation of Pavlov's famous "classical conditioning" experiment, Seligman restrained the dogs for some time in a hammock.