[AlecSchueler]

If you call them a failure they internalise their failure as a feature of their character. If you praise them they will be more likely to engage in improving their performance.

Why is being harsh seen as being more adult? It's just harmful and creates many social barriers and ill will.

[sojournerc]

You can lose a game and not be a "loser". You can fail and not be a failure.

We used to teach that, not tell everyone they did good for participating

Somehow we've lost the distinction between the outcome and the person.

[LeoNatan25]

Everyone today ties their persona and personal identity around what they do, what they purchase and what their opinion is.

In some developer circles, merely opening an issue or criticizing a feature is now considered rude, because someone worked on it very hard and they might get offended at pointing the bug or lacking design. This problem is getting more and more widespread.

Some people see disagreeing with any of their mundane opinions as assault on their character.

With the advent of social media, blocking people for having different opinions, institutionalizing “safe” “spaces” in academia, so that freedom from “offense” or “insult” is seen as more virtuous than having freedom of opinions and ideas, it’s no surprising that people expect to be awarded for merely participating, or they fall in existential depressions.

[fxtentacle]

Fully agree. If I tell someone that they failed a test, they can either bounce back and work on their skills to pass the re-test, or they can internalize it and stop trying.

In my opinion, the 2nd choice is a very common mental disease, in the sense that I see no benefits but lots of drawbacks from generalizing a failure in one part of your life into a character attribute. So most likely, such a trait would have been evolutionary selected against.

In short, people who internalize failure are evolutionary less fit.