'Failure is the mother of success' is a lie. The chances of a person who fails becoming successful are much lower than people believe.
The idea that failure is a stepping stone to success is widely supported, but a new study published in the American Psychological Association suggests that the benefits of experiencing failure may be overestimated.
The exaggerated benefits of failure.
The Big Lie About Failure and Success Everyone Believes
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◆ The truth behind the saying 'Failure is the mother of success'
Previous research has revealed that humans have a tendency to react more strongly to negative information than to positive information, known as ' negativity bias ,' and to place more importance on avoiding failure than on gaining benefits, known as ' loss aversion .' On the other hand, the widely held optimistic belief that 'failure is the mother of success' seems to be the opposite of the tendency to value failure.
To examine this contradiction, a research team led by Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, assistant professor at Northwestern University in the United States, conducted 11 experiments with different themes with more than 1,800 participants recruited online.
For example, in one experiment, we asked aspiring professionals who had failed a professional certification exam, such as the bar exam or a teaching license, to predict the probability of passing the exam on their second try. In another experiment, we changed the question and asked students who had failed the High School Equivalency Exam (GED) to predict the probability of failing it again on their second try.
The results of this experiment confirmed that most people overestimate the chances that a person who fails will succeed on their second try, but underestimate the likelihood of repeated failures.
For example, only 35% of aspiring lawyers will pass the bar exam when retaking it, but participants predicted an average of 57.95% of them would do so. Similarly, students who failed the GED had a 40% chance of failing, but participants predicted a 26.61% chance of doing so.
'Most people expect success to come after failure,' said Escris-Winkler. 'We generally believe that the past determines the future, so it was surprising to see the opposite being true, that failure leads to success.'
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◆Why do people underestimate failure?
It is believed that this result occurs because people unconsciously assume that people who fail will learn from their mistakes. For example, in one experiment with nurse participants, participants were divided into a respondent group and a predictor group, and the respondent group was given a multiple-choice quiz about the problems facing the US healthcare system. The predictor group participants were then asked to predict the probability that someone in the respondent group who got the first quiz right would answer the next quiz correctly.
In this experiment, the predictor nurses assumed that their colleagues would learn from their mistakes and get the quiz right the second time 86.05% of the time. However, nurses who got the first quiz wrong only got it right 46.34% of the time. That means that more than half of those who made a mistake once made the same mistake again.
'People often confuse what should be with what is,' said Escris-Winkler. 'Although people should pay attention to failure and learn from it, they often don't because failure is demotivating and damages self-esteem. While it may be encouraging to think that failure means success the next time, this thinking can have harmful consequences in the real world.'
◆Reactions of people who witnessed the difference between ideals and reality
Knowing the reality may change people's behavior. In an experiment in which participants were asked about the support programs for former drug addicts and former prisoners, they were more likely to support the programs after hearing the truth about them.
For example, in an experiment on opioid addiction, participants said they were, on average, 49.04% likely to sign a petition calling for more tax money to be spent on opioid rehabilitation.
Afterwards, the participants were told that 'only a 9% chance of a person recovering from opioid addiction remaining in that state after one year has passed. In other words, once public assistance ends, there is less than a 10% chance that a former addict will be able to remain independent for more than a year, and most people will return to drugs.
After being informed of this, participants were 58% more likely to sign the petition.
'If people are told there is little to be gained from failure, they may change their mind,' said Escris-Winkler. 'In two experiments, people who were told that ex-offender rehabilitation and drug treatment programs had a low chance of recovery were more likely to agree that funding for these programs should be increased. Correcting these misconceptions about failure may help redirect taxpayer money away from punishment and towards rehabilitation and correction.'
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in Science, Posted by log1l_ks