Why does Failure Stick Around Longer than Success?: A personal quest

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Bridge over The Long Water, Hyde Park, London, UK

Photo by Jonathan Acuña (2018)

Why does Failure Stick Around Longer than Success?

A personal quest

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Friday, July 26, 2019

Post 332

Have you ever wondered why it is that a feeling of failure is longer-lasting than what it is felt when one succeeds? Based on Ledgerwood (May 2013), the “blip of happiness” can take just a few hours to evaporate, but “pesky rejection” can last for several days. Waiting for the blip of refusal to fade away from our emotions can be something most people are not able to handle effectively in a short amount of time.

Some time ago I was asked to help with English language proficiency tests, and I had this unfriendly encounter with a colleague due to my expeditiousness in administrating oral exams. As a very seasoned teaching professional who has created proficiency oral exams and is very aware of the Common European Framework for Languages and its performance descriptors, I felt aggrieved by my peer’s comments regarding my quickness. And this feeling of “pesky rejection” inflamed by my co-worker accompanied me for quite some time, until I asked myself, “Why do I feel this way?” An incident like this should just be some bothering hot air that disperses quickly, but the fact is that it wasn’t just hot air.

“Do our minds get stuck in the negatives? (Ledgerwood, May 2013).” Well, based on data provided by Dr. Ledgerwood (May 2013) during a TED Talk at TEDxUCDavis, “our overview of the world has a fundamental tendency to tilt toward the negative.” Instead of moving away quickly, as it happens when we experience success, the “pesky rejection” stays for days and cannot be done away with by simply motivating our minds to have pleasant thoughts. The fact is, going back to my botheration with my colleague, it stayed with me for several weeks until I came across with Dr. Ledgerwood’s explanation.

Based on Dr. Ledgerwood (May 2013), everything depends on how facts are perceived when they are being described or presented to people. As of this high school year in my country, e.g., the Ministry of Education is planning to have some new GED (General Education Development) test beginning in 2020. High schoolers have been demonstrating on the streets in their communities because they have been told that with these new GED exams, the failure rate is going to be much higher than with the actual GED summative assessments. But is all this true?

Paraphrasing Dr. Ledgerwood (May 2013) a little bit, trying to have someone, or even ourselves, shift their “loss frame” perception toward a “gain frame” is simply strenuous. And now that all these high school students are afraid that this new GED evaluation is going to trigger higher numbers of failing learners, taking them out of this perception of theirs (loss frame) will be a whole challenge. Moving these learners into perceiving the new GED testing as a better way to prepare them towards their academic life at the university (gain frame) is going to be a tough work for ministerial authorities.

Going back to my initial vexation triggered by my peer because of my hastiness when applying oral proficiency exams, my mind had shifted toward a “loss frame” that bothered me for days, as it is bothering high school students who are not yet processing the “right perception” of the new GED. As Dr. Ledgerwood (May 2013) explained, “Once the loss frame gets in there, it sticks.” And the only one individual who can overcome this feeling of rejection is but me (or “you,” depending where you are standing). As for now, I will conditioned my mind to generate more positive thinking and let these displeasing encounters with peers slip by as quickly as possible.