# Predictability and Controllability **Predictability** is the capacity to anticipate consequential events or outcomes. **Controllability** is the capacity to produce or alter outcomes through action. Together they connect an organism's model of the environment to [[wiki/Agency|agency]]: the organism can detect what is likely to happen and learn which actions matter. Research on uncontrollable stress and learned helplessness examines how the absence of effective action–outcome relationships changes behavioral and physiological responses. Learned controllability describes the protective consequences of detecting and exercising effective control. ## Relationships - **opposite failure mode:** [[wiki/Learned Helplessness|Learned Helplessness]]. - **depends on:** [[wiki/Internal Model|Internal Model]] and [[wiki/Information Seeking|Information Seeking]]. - **ethical application:** [[wiki/Environmental Legibility|Environmental Legibility]]. - **source thought:** [[thoughts/The Right to Understand Your World|The Right to Understand Your World]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [Maier and Seligman — Learned helplessness at fifty, 2016](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4920136/) - [Learned helplessness and learned controllability: from neurobiology to cognitive, emotional and behavioral neurosciences, 2025](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12417506/) **As of:** 2026-09-23