Journal of Experimental Psychology Failure To Escape Traumatic Shock
Dogs which had 1st learned to panel press in a harness in orderto escape shock subsequently showed normal acquisition of escape/avoidance behavior in a shuttle box. In contrast, yoked, inescapableshock in the harness produced profound interference with subsequentescape responding in the shuttle box. Initial experience with escapein the shuttle box led to enhanced panel pressing during inescapableshock in the harness and prevented interference with later respondingin the shuttle box. Inescapable shock in the harness and failure toescape in the shuttle box produced interference with escape respondingafter a 7-day rest. These results were interpreted as supporting alearned "helplessness" explanation of interference with escape re-sponding: Ss failed to escape shock in the shuttle box following in-escapable shock in the harness because they had learned that shock termination was independent of responding.
Overmier and Seligman (1967) haveshown that the prior exposure of dogsto inescapable shock in a Pavlovianharness reliably results in interfer-ence with subsequent escape/avoidancelearning in a shuttle box. Typically,these dogs do not even escape from