Ultralearning: Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Skills and Outsmart the Competition

by Scott H. Young

in over 38 percent of cases, feedback actually had a negative impact. This leads to a confusing situation. On the one hand, feedback is essential for expert attainment, as demonstrated by the scientific studies of deliberate practice. Feedback also figures prominently in ultralearning projects, and it’s difficult to imagine their being successful if their sources of feedback had been turned off. At the same time, a review of the evidence doesn’t paint the picture of feedback being universally positive. What’s the explanation? Kluger and DeNisi argue that the discrepancy is in the type of feedback that is given. Feedback works well when it provides useful information that can guide future learning. If feedback tells you what you’re doing wrong or how to fix it, it can be a potent tool. But feedback often backfires when it is aimed at a person’s ego. Praise, a common type of feedback that teachers often use (and students enjoy), is usually harmful to further learning. When feedback steers into evaluations of you as an individual (e.g., “You’re so smart!” or “You’re lazy”), it usually has a negative impact on learning. Further, even feedback that includes useful information needs to be correctly processed as a motivator and tool for learning. Kluger and DeNisi noted that some of the studies that showed a negative impact of feedback occurred because the subjects themselves chose not to use the feedback constructively. They may have rejected the feedback, lowered the standards ...