Study: Failure Can Be Rewarding

SACRAMENTO (CBS Sacramento) - The old adage you learn more from your failures than your successes has been proven by science, reports BioScience Technology.

Researchers at the University of Southern California asked 28 participants a series of questions. If they answered correctly they won money; they lost money if they gave wrong answers.

They were subject to three types of trials: first the researchers punished the volunteers to try to get them to avoid making the same mistakes, then they rewarded correct answers, and finally tested to see if the subjects learned from their failure.

The participants were put into an MRI so observers could see when the brain's reward system kicked in.

Brain scans show that in the third round people's brains responded positively, mimicking a reward-based learning response.

"We show that in certain circumstances, when we get enough information to contextualize the choices, then our brain essentially reaches towards the reinforcement mechanism instead of turning toward avoidance," explained lead author Giorgio Coricelli, a USC Dornsife associate professor of economics and psychology..

Coricelli compared the experience to regret, where doing something wrong results in a change of behavior in the future.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

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