I’ve asked the same thing, both of myself (I’ve got it, though I make a conscious effort to suppress it) and others. My conclusion? It is knee-jerk feeling of embarrassment.
Were you perhaps home schooled or brought up in some other non-traditional environment? I ask because I went to public school, and I can tell you that it isn’t only in the adult world that people don’t like to be corrected. Children routinely make fun of or prod other children when they make mistakes, and at the same time they might shrug off a correction or even make fun of you for making it or for knowing the fact.
There is a fairly good TED talk related to this topic here.
I had a conventional education (the concept of homeschooling doesn’t exist in my part of Europe) but from middle school up to university you choose who you interact with and I (small-mindedly) chose to only interact with the “smart kids” who liked math and science. Classes were also grouped by personality type and interests so that mathy kids don’t sit in the same math class as the kids who detest math. I don’t think I remember a single occurrence where kids socially punished each other for regular mistakes. For foot-in-mouth moments? Sure. For regular mistakes? Nope. To be fair, maybe I was just oblivious and didn’t pick up on it.
I’ve asked the same thing, both of myself (I’ve got it, though I make a conscious effort to suppress it) and others. My conclusion? It is knee-jerk feeling of embarrassment.
Were you perhaps home schooled or brought up in some other non-traditional environment? I ask because I went to public school, and I can tell you that it isn’t only in the adult world that people don’t like to be corrected. Children routinely make fun of or prod other children when they make mistakes, and at the same time they might shrug off a correction or even make fun of you for making it or for knowing the fact.
There is a fairly good TED talk related to this topic here.
Thanks for the TED link.
I had a conventional education (the concept of homeschooling doesn’t exist in my part of Europe) but from middle school up to university you choose who you interact with and I (small-mindedly) chose to only interact with the “smart kids” who liked math and science. Classes were also grouped by personality type and interests so that mathy kids don’t sit in the same math class as the kids who detest math. I don’t think I remember a single occurrence where kids socially punished each other for regular mistakes. For foot-in-mouth moments? Sure. For regular mistakes? Nope. To be fair, maybe I was just oblivious and didn’t pick up on it.
That is quite interesting; I was not aware that such systems existed. It sounds much cleaner than the system I went through.