TY - JOUR

T1 - Failure to Learn From Failure Is Mitigated by Loss-Framing and Corrective Feedback

T2 - A Replication and Test of the Boundary Conditions of the Tune-Out Effect

AU - Keith, Nina

AU - Horvath, Dorothee

AU - Klamar, Alexander

AU - Frese, Michael

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022. American Psychological Association

PY - 2022/8/1

Y1 - 2022/8/1

N2 - Do people learn from failure or do they mentally “tune-out” upon failure feedback, which in turn undermines learning? Recent research (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019) has suggested the latter, whereas research in educational and work settings indicates that failure can lead to more learning than can success and error-free performance. We conducted two preregistered experiments to replicate the tune-out effect and to test two potential boundary conditions (N = 520). The tune-out effect fully replicated in those experimental conditions that represented close replications of the original study, underscoring the reliability of the original effect. However, the effect disappeared when the same monetary incentives for participation were expressed in terms of a loss (i.e., losing money for each wrong answer) rather than a gain (i.e., earning money for each correct answer; Experiment 1). The effect also disappeared when additional corrective feedback was given (Experiment 2). It seems that switching from gain to loss framing or giving corrective feedback (vs. no corrective feedback) are substantial and meaningful variations of the original paradigm that constitute boundary conditions of the tune-out effect. These results help explain the conflicting findings on learning from failure and suggest that in many applied settings, tuning out upon failure might not be an option

AB - Do people learn from failure or do they mentally “tune-out” upon failure feedback, which in turn undermines learning? Recent research (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019) has suggested the latter, whereas research in educational and work settings indicates that failure can lead to more learning than can success and error-free performance. We conducted two preregistered experiments to replicate the tune-out effect and to test two potential boundary conditions (N = 520). The tune-out effect fully replicated in those experimental conditions that represented close replications of the original study, underscoring the reliability of the original effect. However, the effect disappeared when the same monetary incentives for participation were expressed in terms of a loss (i.e., losing money for each wrong answer) rather than a gain (i.e., earning money for each correct answer; Experiment 1). The effect also disappeared when additional corrective feedback was given (Experiment 2). It seems that switching from gain to loss framing or giving corrective feedback (vs. no corrective feedback) are substantial and meaningful variations of the original paradigm that constitute boundary conditions of the tune-out effect. These results help explain the conflicting findings on learning from failure and suggest that in many applied settings, tuning out upon failure might not be an option

KW - learning from errors

KW - learning from failure

KW - loss aversion

KW - corrective feedback

KW - Management studies

KW - Business psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136631331&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1037/xge0001170

DO - 10.1037/xge0001170

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 35951406

VL - 151

SP - 19

EP - 25

JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

SN - 0096-3445

IS - 8

ER -