Two Guys on Your Head

Two Guys on Your Head > All Episodes

April 10, 2026

The Failure Gap & Its Discontents

By: Rebecca McInroy

In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Eskreis-Winkler and colleagues describe what they call “the failure gap” — the consistent finding that outside observers dramatically overestimate how often people succeed after failing. In this episode of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman, Dr. Bob Duke, and Rebecca McInroy discuss the takeaways from learning more about failure.

Reference: Eskreis-Winkler, L., Woolley, K., Kim, M., & Polimeni, E. (in press). The failure gap. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Preprint available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=5407064