| learned helplessness | |
| —n | |
| the act of giving up trying as a result of consistent failure to be rewarded in life, thought to be a cause of depression | |
| Main Entry: | learned helplessness |
| Part of Speech: | n |
| Definition: | a mental condition in which one becomes unable to help oneself due to previous failed attempts at controlling one's life; also, a condition in which a person establishes and maintains contact with another by adopting a helpless, powerless stance |
| Example: | Learned helplessness is conditioned behavior in which an individual gives up trying to escape a painful situation after repeatedly failing to escape. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |