We live in such a complex and modern world that we sometimes think we are good for failure. But, in the readings for Dorner and Forsyth, we can see that human beings are nowhere close to perfect. Dorner starts by giving a few examples on cases where human beings were wrong. He talks about an environmentally conscious town that seeks to reduce emissions by lowering the speed limit. The entire town decides this is a group project, and so they carry it out. But, it is a complete failure and actual makes the problem worse. This actually made me think about a concept I learned about in my FYS class with Dr. Forsyth. Groupthink encourages us to convince ourselves to do something irrational because the members convince each other it is the right thing to do. Usually, it involves a cohesive group with set leaders who people trust. This applies in the case of the town hall, but it can also be found in countless other examples. One of the clearest examples of it was in the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster where 12 people died. They were not able to clearly communicate or voice conflicting opinions ultimately resulting in catastrophe and failure.

Dorner Also gives us the story of the Moro tribe. Their group is struggling because of tsetse flies, high infant mortality, and a lack of clean water. A psychologist and economist come together and see all that western society can do to help them. So, they get involved. They help them with the fly problem, give them access to better healthcare, and more. Yet, their actions again result in failure. They make the problem better at first but much worse in the long run. This example made me think of Doing Good Better and the play pump example. Dorner points out that we often try to involve ourselves in problems where we have no first hand experience. We, as western and industrialized people, have a tendency to want to fix all problems. But, it is really hard for our brains to comprehend a problem we cannot see so when we try to help tribes or create the Play Pump we are often on the road to failure. Interestingly, you can seemingly do everything right but still fail. It somehow reminds me of how we prove a logic problem invalid: if the conclusion is false and both premises are true, it is invalid. It is still possible to take all the seemingly correct actions and still come out with a false outcome in terms of what we expected to happen.

What really intrigued me from Dorner and Forsyth’s readings was the idea of good intentions. When we set out to do something, we almost always think in a way that is positive. We want to help the situations and we often convince ourselves that we can. In Forsyth’s experiment, it would have been impermissible and unethical to treat students in a way that seemingly would hurt them. But, by boosting their self-esteem which on its own seems like a good thing, they received much worse grades. Failure can be hard to accept and easy to find because we often convince ourselves that intentions matter not outcomes. This is an idea that is becoming more prominent in our “everyone is a winner culture.”