Indeed, these days, the benefits of failure have taken on an almost mythical quality. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs openly aspire to “fail fast, fail often,” while an entire generation of athletes grew up with Michael Jordan’s mantra: “I’ve failed over and over and over in my life. And that’s why I succeed.”
But there is a danger in viewing failure through success glasses.
“Teachers, coaches and speakers try to inspire when it comes to failure,” he says Lauren Eskreis-Winklerassistant professor of management and organizations at Kellogg. “But we’re finding that overinspiring—exaggerating the benefits of failure—actually demotivates. The bottom line is that when we talk about failure, we should aim to be precise.”
Across seven studies, Eskreis-Winkler and her colleagues find that people consistently overestimate one’s likelihood of success after an initial failure—a phenomenon that appears to stem, at least in part, from people’s inability to attend to their own mistakes. After all, who wants to probe too deeply into their own personal failings?
This “failure gap” can be harmful to individuals, who may fail to adequately prepare for the next opportunity or take other steps to ensure that they learn from their mistakes. But it can also be devastating to communities, Eskreis-Winkler says.
“If you assume people are more resilient than they actually are, you’re helping less,” he says. Halfway houses, rehab programs, and recidivism programs all become short-lived if we believe that people struggling to get back on their feet don’t need the extra support.
Surely, this time we’ll make it?
Sure, failure can actually be a stepping stone to success. For example, Kellogg researchers Yang Wang, Ben Jonesand Dashun Wang found that scientists who had narrowly lost a major grant ended up achieving greater professional success than those who had narrowly received the grant. The act of failure can turn us into better versions of ourselves.
But the operative word here is can. Eskreis-Winkler and her colleagues Kaitlin Woolley of Cornell, Eda Erensoy of Yale, and Minhee Kim of Columbia suspected that factors such as optimism bias—a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of negative ones—could lead us to a higher probability of success after failure than is actually accurate.
The researchers tested their hypothesis in several online studies.
In the first, 300 participants considered themselves law school graduates, nursing students, or education students who had failed their first attempt at a licensing test. What percentage of these students would pass the same exam on the second try? In all three occupations, participants significantly overestimated the number of students who would pass the test on their second attempt—sometimes by a lot. For example, participants estimated that 58 percent of law students who failed the bar exam would pass the second go-round, when the actual passing rate is only 35 percent. A follow-up study found similar results for students who had failed their initial attempt at the GED.
The (over)publicized benefits of failure
Where does this unrealistic optimism in the face of failure come from? Well, it seems to come partly from our ideas about failure itself.
In another study, participants were told that a student had scored 219 out of 300 points on a teacher licensing exam. Crucially, only some of these participants were told that 219 was a failing score. Participants who knew the student had initially failed overestimated the likelihood of scoring higher on the next test, whereas participants who saw only the raw score (without the failure context) did not.
Our beliefs about the positive effects of failure are also not limited to more traditional realms of achievement. In general, participants overestimated the likelihood that someone addicted to opioids would enter treatment—but their estimates were even more inflated for people who had just experienced a “failure” (a non-fatal drug overdose). In fact, people who have recently overdosed are less likely to initiate treatment.
This, of course, begs the question of why we are so certain of this failure above all breeds success. And according to research, it seems to result from an inflated confidence that people will actively learn from their own mistakes.
In one study, for example, a group of oncology nurses answered a quiz question such as, “What percentage of Americans believe that patients in clinical trials are not receiving the best possible care?” choosing from two options. Those who answered incorrectly were told the same, giving them an opportunity to learn from their mistake. later, they were tested again based on the same information. Only about half of those retested answered correctly the second time.
However, when another group of oncology nurses was asked to predict how many of their peers would learn from an incorrect initial answer, this group estimated that about 86 percent would. (A follow-up study found that people did not overestimate the likelihood of learning from success—only from failure.)
“We overestimate resilience,” says Eskreis-Winkler. “We think people learn and grow from failure more than they actually do.”
Nothing to see here…
So what could be going on? What is it that makes us fail? think will people learn more from it than is likely?
The researchers hypothesized that much of this depends on attention and, specifically, how uncomfortable it is to watch our own failures. From the outside, failure offers a spectacular opportunity for reassessment and growth. But for people who really fail, that opportunity is a little less appetizing.
Indeed, another study found that participants overestimated how many people would ask for detailed feedback about their own mistakes. This in turn predicted their overestimation that people would succeed the next time.
However, when we are reminded how rarely people follow up on their mistakes, our estimates of their likelihood of future success become more accurate. When participants were asked to estimate the likelihood that a heart attack survivor would feel motivated to make lifestyle changes, they were predicted to overestimate. However, those who were told that only a “small minority” of heart attack survivors actively think about their health, their predictions were less inflated.
Social implications of overestimating success
Our collective tendency to overestimate how much people will learn from their mistakes could have far-reaching consequences, influencing public policy in ways that make success less likely.
That’s the finding of the researchers’ final study, in which 200 participants were asked directly how much tax funding dollars should go to programs that help people recovering from opioid addiction stay in recovery. Half were told the sobering reality that only 9 percent of people in recovery avoided relapse in the first year, while the rest were left to imagine a (presumably much higher) recovery rate. Sharing information about the low success rate strengthened the participants’ support for the programs. Similar results, using slightly different methods, were obtained for rehabilitation programs for ex-prisoners.
Knowing all this, how should we think about failure? “With open eyes,” says Eskreis-Winkler. “Our paper suggests that over-belief in the benefits of failure has the same negative consequences as fear of failure: people disengage from the experience.”
Instead, he argues, people should “adopt a clearer view of truth. This motivates people to tune in to failure and learn and grow from the experience.”
This is true of individuals, who could probably benefit from carefully examining the reason for their failure, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them. But it also applies to communities, he explains. “This mistaken belief undermines the incentive to invest taxpayer dollars in all kinds of programs.”
