“The researchers concluded that failure is “ego threatening, which causes people to tune out.” Further support for this explanation came from the fifth study, where participants observed others take similar tests—rather than taking them themselves. This time they learned equally from the failures (and the failure feedback) as from the successes. Without the ego threat, the shortcomings of failure feedback were erased. It seems we’re pretty good at learning from other people’s failures! In real life, however, we often don’t hear about them.”