Not Learning from Failure -- The Greatest Failure of All

Abstract

We live in a society that celebrates failure. Yet across six randomized-controlled experiments (N = 847), we found that failure had the opposite effect: it undermined learning. In work and health domains, teachers, overweight individuals, and hairdressers learned less from failure than success (Study 1). This phenomenon replicated in a novel “script” task, in which people made a binary choice and received performance feedback (i.e., correct vs. incorrect). Because there were only two answer choices, failure and success were equally informative. Yet, even when learning from failure was incentivized (Study 2), and when learning from failure was less cognitively taxing (Study 3), failure obstructed learning. Why? Failure, which is ego-threatening, causes people to tune out. Participants who received failure (vs. success or no) feedback remembered fewer task details; this, in turn, mediated their lower levels of learning (Studies 4-5). In a final study, participants learned less from their own failures compared to their own successes, yet they learned just as much from others’ failures as others’ successes (Study 6)–thus, when ego-threat is removed, people tune in and learn from failure. In sum, the current investigation suggests that people struggle to learn from personal failures.

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