Scientists have found that a black stripe is not always followed by a white one.

The platitude that failure leads to success can be both inaccurate and harmful to society. A new study finds that people tend to overestimate the likelihood of success after failure, which may make them less willing to help others who are facing difficulties. A team of researchers from the business schools of Northwestern, Cornell, Yale and Columbia universities analyzed data from various online surveys of more than 1,800 US adults aged 29 to 49 and compared the available statistics with the responses of participants. As it turns out, people are much more likely to expect success to follow failure than it actually is. Moreover, survey participants mistakenly believed that people focus on their mistakes and learn from them after failure.

Scientists have found that a black streak is not always followed by a white one. The famous expression that failure is a good teacher, it seems, will have to be reconsidered. Image: www.yourtango.com. Photo.

Contents

  • 1 Fear of failure
  • 2 Negative experiences
  • 3 Helping others
  • 4 Damage to self-esteem

Fear of failure

When we fail, we tell ourselves that every cloud has a silver lining: failure is a necessary stepping stone on the path to success. Even Thomas Edison wrote that he failed on the path to success, JK Rowling's commencement speech about her bad experience at Harvard became popular, and Steve Jobs even argued that the fear of failure will lead no one anywhere.

Results A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, however, suggests that all of the above is nothing more than a myth anda bad streak actually breeds failure. In the course of the work, the scientists conducted 11 different surveys on failure in a variety of areas – from passing exams and mistakes at work to health problems and found thatpeople tend to overestimatethe likelihood of achieving success after having failed .

Fear of failure. If you fail, the next step will not necessarily be successful. Image: www.hollywoodreporter.com. Photo.

In one study, the authors of the work asked subjects to predict the likelihood that students would be able to retake an exam after a failed attempt and found that participants overestimated the likelihood of success if retaken.

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It is also interesting that nurses overestimated the likelihood of success of their colleagues after professional failure. Moreover, people also overestimated the likelihood that patients with cardiovascular disease would make lifestyle changes after receiving emergency medical care.

Negative experiences

Because the study included 11 different surveys, the researchers removed all references to failing an exam in one, and all references to drug overdose in another. Surprisingly, in both cases, the subjects were not so confident that retaking the test would go well, and that quitting drugs again would be successful. And their low expectations turned out to be more accurate.

Negative experience. A series of failures does not necessarily predict success. Image: www.calmclinic.com. Photo.

A series of failures does not necessarily predict success. Image: www.calmclinic.com

The authors of the scientific paper also found that our tendency to overestimate success after failure has political consequences. People who believe that failure breeds success are less likely to support drug recovery programs. However, when people learn about the true incidence of failure, they are more likely to support other social reforms.

The findings have implications for how we think about our professional and personal failures, people with addictions and everyone else, that is, those who struggle to learn from past bad experiences, the article says.

Researchers also note that telling people that they will succeed after failure may actually make them feel better, but that thinking can have detrimental consequences in the real world.

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Helping others

One of the findings of the new study concerns helping others. It turned out that when people believe that others who are faced with difficulties can cope with them on their own, they begin to help those in need less, because they believe that these problems will “go away on their own.”

Helping others. Alas, the black stripe is not always followed by a white one. Image: avatars.dzeninfra.ru. Photo.

For example, in one survey, people who exaggerated the benefits of failure were less interested in using taxpayer money to support former prisoners and people suffering from drug addiction. However, when the researchers corrected exaggerated beliefs about the benefits of failure, the same participants became more motivated to help.

Our main finding is that people systematically overestimate the likelihood that they will fail. that they can survive after failure. However, you can reset your expectations by learning about the small benefits of failure, the study authors say.

This selective perception allows people to take more chances, despite the mistaken belief that failures contribute to success. However, from the point of view of helping others, exaggerating the benefits of failure is destructive.

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Damage to self-esteem

In fact, it is difficult to learn from a bad experience because failure is demotivating and ego-bruising. The findings suggest that our external perspective tends to focus on learning from past negative experiences, overlooking the fact that people who experience failure may not perceive it as a learning opportunity.

Damage to self-esteem. People who believe that problems will resolve themselves after one of several failures are less motivated to help others. Image: news.uchicago.edu. Photo.

People who believe that problems will resolve themselves after one of several failures are less motivated to help others. Image: news.uchicago.edu

Thus, in some experiments, survey participants mistakenly believed that people pay attention to their mistakes and learn from them. In fact, failures demotivate and threaten self-esteem. nbcnews journalists discussed the results of scientific work with a psychiatrist at one of the private clinics in New York, Dr. Lama Bazzi, who urged not to be upset when reading the study findings and to learn patience, despite the desire to move forward quickly.

Failure is always a painful lesson for self-esteem. If something doesn't work out for you, simply trying again to change the outcome likely isn't enough, says Ryan Sultan, director of the Mental Health Informatics Lab at Columbia University Medical Center.

According to the psychiatrist, to change the situation, it is necessary to feel discomfort, analyze where mistakes were made and make a conscious effort to approach similar future tasks consciously and differently. Moreover, the results of the study do not mean that having failed at something, you will never be able to succeed. In other words, we must not forget about the path that led to such results and learn to critically evaluate it.

Damage to self-esteem. Failure is a reason to become stronger. But not everything is so simple. Image: scitechdaily.com. Photo.

Failure is a reason to become stronger. But it's not that simple. Image: scitechdaily.com

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It should also be noted that the study analyzed various groups of the US population, including students , specialists and patients of medical institutions, which means additional research is needed to understand how people in other cultures relate to failures and interpret negative events.


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