NAME: NATASHA CHILESHE

STUDENT NO: SU/01/20/0

COURSE: FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYCHOLOGY

PROGRAMME: BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PURCHASING AND

SUPPLY
ASSIGNMENT NO: ASSIGNMENT 2

LECTURE: MRS.MUMBA

DUE DATE: 26/06/2020

Question : “A failure is not a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do
under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. “
Explain what this means in the light of the work of Psychologist B.F
Skinner.
 Most people fail at some point in their lives. It’s a necessary and a fundamental part of life.
People have to generally fail at something before they find success – even though failure can be
defined as a lack of success, an unsuccessful person, enterprise or thing, a lack or deficiency of a
desirable quality. But failure is not a means to an end, nor does failure have to give any indication
of permanence. What is permanent is not getting started in the first place out of fear of failure. To
fail is to fail to hit one’s target, whatever it may be, but it doesn’t prevent one from trying again.
According to B.F Skinner “A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do
under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”
A lot of times, a person fails because they failed to adequately prepare for success. This
extends to all aspects of life that people want to improve upon relationships, career-related
objectives, and personal achievements. Most people want to a better life, have goals and things
they want to do in life. A good deal of time and effort go into preparing for something important
– any important undertaking. It seems that many people pursue success half-heartedly, with little
effort and preparation, and they wonder why they fail. Preparation is the key to avoiding failure,
or it at the very least minimizes one’s chances of failing. But it’s not always a certainty.

Lifestyle habits are important when considering their effect on failure, but one’s mental
habits are also a key part of success. A person convinced of their success, or that it will assuredly
happen in the near future, will most likely be successful in life. They are seeing their success,
what it looks and feels like, play out in their minds. This is the start of the Law of Attraction at
work. The Law of Attraction is a theory arguing that by focusing on positive or negative
thoughts, a person can bring about positive or negative results. If a person yearns for success,
thinks about it, dreams about it, always has their mind on it, the better their chances will be for
them achieving success. This means they will be less likely to fail later.

To lessen the likelihood of failure, one has to do things to maximize their probability of
success. This can be changing one’s daily lifestyle habits, for one example. A person focused on
accomplishing something, on creating success, will have to dedicate their free time to this cause.
This means early nights and even earlier mornings, staying home and working instead of going
out and spending money or wasting one’s time. Failure can often be attributed to a lack of
commitment to success. Everyone – well, perhaps most people – strive for success. People as a
whole don’t strive to fail at things in life. They generally want to excel at them.

A good example of Skinner’s theory about failure, Is the American Scientist Thomas
Edison. Edison failed frequently. In fact, it sometimes took thousands of attempts – literally – to
perfect his experimentation. That was exactly the case when Edison was working to devise a
novel storage battery. According to his close friend Walter S. Mallory, Edison had already tried
9,000 experiments and hadn’t yet found a solution. When Mallory commented about the lack of
results, Edison promptly responded, “Results! Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! I know
several thousand things that won’t work!” Even with disappointment, Edison took the failure in
stride. From then on, he declared that he would focus his ideas and inventions on filling gaps or
opening new opportunities in the marketplace. As a result of his determination and perseverance
invented the light bulb in January 1879.

When thinking about failure I don’t think human beings are literal about the definition of
the word. I actually think failure has an extremely heavy emotional weighting. Research has
proved that the valence, or ‘mood’ of the word failure trended towards the negative. To put it
simply, it just means that we interpret the word ‘failure’ as ‘bad’. As for the arousal value of the
word (or way it affects peoples sympathetic nervous system — the system involved with panic
and anxiety), it was 2.81 standard deviations across a normal sample mean. It just means in a
large sample of words, the word ‘failure’ tends to affect us more than the other 99% of words.

In the modern world, a mind shift we need is realization that failure is the rule rather than
the exception. This begs intellectual honesty. Failure is a promising area of investigation because
it is such a common experience. Yet, it is a secret that is never spoken out loud. One hundred
years ago, Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), an Italian engineer, economist, sociologist, and
philosopher, demanded: “Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own
corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.” Failing well breeds success. It is not
difficult to be definitely tentative, turn means into ends, be less prejudiced but more
discriminatory, transform work into play, and celebrate mistakes.

Some people have a hard time admitting it when they fail. However, successful people
recognize when they’ve made a blunder. They learn from it, grow and then move on. They know
that if they ignore a mistake they can get caught in a negative cycle that will leave them defeated.
That would be a true failure.

Ignoring your gut instinct. Sometimes we just sense something is off without being able
to explain why. It’s easy to discount these instincts, perhaps because we’re not really sure if we
should trust a hunch over our rational mind. But successful people only make that mistake once
before they realize that their gut instincts should never be ignored. Taking your instincts into
account will give you a broader perception of what’s going on and make you more confident of
your decisions.

Not asking tough questions. Sometimes we’re uncomfortable prying into every detail
because we fear being intrusive. But there are times when you have to ask the tough questions.
Successful people may fail to do that once, but when they get burned, they’ll ignore the
awkwardness and make sure they have all the information they need.

Playing it safe. If you constantly play it safe in life, you’re probably hoping to avoid
making mistakes by going along with the herd. But this is one of the biggest mistakes of all,
because sweeping success only comes to those who are courageous enough to strike out on their
own. Successful people may initially allow themselves to fall into this trap, but something in
them propels them to take risks. They would rather try something new and fail than take a safe
bet and lead a boring life.

Believing in perfection. It’s easy to fall for a promise of something that seems like a
wonderful opportunity. It’s easy to believe in someone who seems to have charisma and charm.
But if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. No one is perfect. Successful people
may be duped once, but they will be sure to remain skeptical and objective in the future.

Letting emotions drive decision-making. Emotions sometimes have a way of taking over,
even if in the back of our minds we realize we should step back. Negative emotions like
jealousy, doubt and anger can plague even the most logical people, clouding their judgment and
leading to poor decision making. Successful people don’t allow themselves to fall into this trap
more than once.
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