Seligman's dogs, having been unable to escape shocks, stayed put when escape later became easy. Why is calling this 'learned helplessness' rather than 'laziness' a substantive claim rather than a kinder wording?

A. Because it names a specific thing learned, which predicts more.

The two accounts sound like competing labels and make different predictions, which makes the choice empirical. The decisive comparison is with dogs receiving identical shocks they could control — same pain, same exhaustion — who escaped promptly. And it predicts the cure: dragging a dog to the safe side until it feels its own movement work restores normal behaviour.