In the last talk of our Re­se­arch Se­mi­nar Se­ries be­fo­re Christ­mas, Prof. Fi­sh­bach from Uni­ver­si­ty of Chi­ca­go (US) pre­sen­ted her re­se­arch on sharing in­for­ma­ti­on lear­ned from failu­re.

Alt­hough we are li­ving in a so­cie­ty that ce­le­bra­tes failu­re as a tea­ch­a­ble mo­ment, re­se­arch by Prof. Fi­sh­bach sug­gests that failu­re can un­der­mi­ne lear­ning.

In sever­al stu­dies, Prof. Fi­sh­bach shows that alt­hough failu­re con­tains use­ful in­for­ma­ti­on, peop­le learn less from failu­re feed­back than from suc­cess feed­back and mo­reo­ver, do not share in­for­ma­ti­on ob­tai­ned from failu­res. Par­ti­ci­pants in her ex­pe­ri­ments con­sistent­ly un­ders­ha­red failu­re, even though failu­re con­tai­ned ob­jec­tive­ly more in­for­ma­ti­on com­pa­red to suc­cess. Her stu­dies fur­ther show that peop­le are less li­ke­ly to share in­for­ma­ti­on they lear­ned from failu­re feed­back even com­pa­red to a no-​feedback ex­pe­ri­ence, which of­fers no use­ful in­for­ma­ti­on at all. Thus, par­ti­ci­pants chose to share in­for­ma­ti­on on an ans­wer on which they re­cei­ved no feed­back over an ans­wer on which they re­cei­ved the in­for­ma­ti­on that their given ans­wer was wrong.

The Mar­ke­ting de­part­ment at WU thanks Prof. Fi­sh­bach for her time and for sharing her va­lu­a­ble know­ledge.

Bar­ba­ra Hartl