Learned helplessness

Biological Parallel

Salmon repeatedly failing to leap degraded waterfalls eventually stop attempting migration entirely—learned helplessness in action. This response is adaptive when environmental barriers are truly insurmountable: conserving energy for current survival beats dying in futile attempts. The mechanism becomes pathological when transient barriers get encoded as permanent: salmon that learned helplessness during one high-water season may fail to attempt migration when conditions later improve. In organizations, teams that experienced repeated failed launches under impossible deadlines develop learned helplessness, failing to execute even when resource constraints are lifted.