As part of their training, air force pilots make two practice landings with instructors, and are rated on their performance. The
instructors discuss the ratings with the pilots after each landing. After a statistical analysis, the air force found that pilots who made poor landings the first time tended to do better the second time. Conversely, pilots who made good landings the first time tended to do worse the second time. The conclusion was that criticism tended to make the pilots do better, while praise tended to make them do worse. As a result of this study, the instructors were ordered to criticize all landings, good or bad. Is this warranted by the facts?
This is actually good, because it helps improvement more. They may do a ¨good¨ landing, but there could still be flaws. Due to my own experiences in reacting to criticism and praise, praise will make you calm down, and think you are perfect, making you more lazy the second time you do it, thinking it will all be okay. Criticism toughens you up, and helps you do better everytime you do what you do.
