A 4-year-old child who has received beatings in the past, from which he could not escape, appears unresponsive and no longer tries to escape new beatings. This behavior by the child is an example of

This child is showing learned helplessness, in which an association is made between an aversive stimulus (beatings) and the inability to escape. After the beatings, this child makes no attempt to escape but instead becomes hopeless and apathetic when faced with another beating. Learned helplessness may be a model system for the development of depression