Korva rescues the ideas worth keeping from podcasts. Each one becomes a Card.
A romantic rejection interpreted as “I’m unlovable” spreads helplessness everywhere. Interpreted as specific to one person, its damage stays local.
Dogs given inescapable shocks first later failed to escape avoidable shocks by simply crossing the shuttle box.
At West Point’s six-week Beast Barracks, 4:00 a.m. wake-ups, 10-mile runs, and systematic abuse preceded one-third dropping out. Pessimists left.
The emotional and cognitive effects of learned helplessness come from lacking control over trauma, not trauma itself.
In Donald Hiroto’s experiment, people exposed to inescapable noise later sat still instead of moving a hand to escape avoidable noise.
Pessimists who believed setbacks were personal and permanent became two to eight times likelier to become depressed.
After 30 years of measuring himself, Martin Seligman says he became a completely different person and no longer a grouch.
Learned helplessness begins when nothing a person does matters, then makes effective action hard to recognize in similar situations.
Seeing bad events as temporary, local, and not your fault protects against helplessness. Seeing them as permanent, pervasive, and your fault promotes it.
Success may come in spite of a grouchy disposition, not because of it.
A grouch sees everything wrong, criticizes it, and tries to correct it.
Agency has three parts: belief you can achieve a goal now, belief you can achieve it later, and imagination about possible goals.
Human progress does not rise continuously. When agency is suppressed, history enters periods of stagnation and deterioration.
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