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Because unjustified criticism is annoying and justified criticism confronts us with our flaws.
For some, it is the loss of social standing. You are doing things worthy of criticism.
Losing social status means losing financial status and therefore is bad for your health.
its just a distilled form of rejection. were a social species, rejection in any form is going to be painful and avoided.
They are?
You may want to define your terms: what do you mean by “afraid of criticism”? Which humans? Why humans and not “people”?
Who exactly is afraid of criticism? What kind of criticism? Surely not everyone is afraid of all criticism?
Humans is a term to explain the whole of humanity in an unbiased manner. And in my perspective, humans as a whole are short of humility.
Humans are not in any way homogeneous, though. So, not only are people not necessarily all incapable of accepting criticism, those that are will have different reasons for it.
Though, based on this comment, it seems you’re dealing with people who don’t like it when you don’t universally massage their ego.
In which case, those specific people you’re thinking of have tied their self-worth to their perfection. Tell them they’re not perfect and they get tetchy.
- criticism -> blame
- blame -> guilt
- guilt -> shame
- shame -> bad chemicals
If you believe this, you need to start hanging out with better people.
I’m not terrified of criticism! YOU’RE TERRIFIED OF CRITICISM!
Probably because it used to be that being ostracized from our towns/clans/whathaveyou was basically a death sentence.
Getting criticized for something could potentially lead to the town/your family driving you out. Either through the people listening to the complaints deciding you weren’t ‘good’ for the town, or others dogpiling on with their own complaints, real or imagined.
You have to remember, there were bandits, wild animals, and deadly weather outside the protection of our small groups. And that’s assuming you got to survive the ostracizing in the first place.
The Bible gives a rather chilling example: if your kid is disobedient or troublesome, drag them to the front of the town and loudly criticize their behavior. Then, it is the moral imperative of the town to assist you in stoning your kid to death.
With things like that being a social norm, is it any wonder we developed a fear of criticism?
I’m not! Who told you that??
Exactly! And why did they have to ask it so directly? Where’s the tact? They’re as arrogant as Donald Trump, and they have the morals of (whispered in a raspy voice) an alleycat!
A half-million years ago, our ancestors were hunted to near-extinction by laughing hyenas.
Hehehe
I don’t necessarily feel like people are scared of criticism, but more so scared of being attacked. In my experience, a large number of people don’t know how to give constructive criticism in a way that’s actually helpful.
Lets say you’re training somebody at work and your trainee makes a mistake. I’ve seen trainers respond to this in two different ways:
- (Laughing) “Really?! No, why would you do that. This is the right way to do it.”
- “That might work in some cases, but that’s not exactly right. A more efficient way is like this.”
Humans are emotional creatures, some more than others, and our emotions influence how we handle criticism. It’s a fact of life. Most people want to learn from their mistakes, not be put in a position where they feel like they need to defend themselves. It feels a lot better to think “Okay, I’m making a mistake, but I know how to keep myself from doing it again” instead of “Wow, this person thinks I’m a piece of shit.”
Most people aren’t taught how to deal with criticism and see it as a personal attack, an attempt to discredit them. This leads a culture where people are afraid/unwilling to admit they were wrong (it’s a sign of weakness after all, “I can’t be weak”) and would rather dig themselves towards more and more absurd explanations and deflections on how they are the correct ones.
The more popular this stance becomes (compare how stars or politicians, the ones setting an example, act now and how they were few decades ago) the more it spreads, powering the cycle of pride and unwillingness to say “I was wrong”.
That’s how I see it at least. It’s not exactly a professional or scientific look at the issue so there might be better explanations out there.
Most people aren’t taught how to deal with criticism and see it as a personal attack, an attempt to discredit them.
A lot of the time that’s what it is though. Accepting criticism at face value takes a lot of trust because the main intention of the person giving it could very well be to assert dominance or persuade people to stop listening to you rather than give you useful information and help you improve. This is why people are afraid of criticism; it has always been used as a way to build social hierarchies, and it goes against our instincts to see it as not being about that.
Some people definitely use it as such and I do think it became more and more common as the previously mentioned habit of treating accepting criticism as a weakness started being normalized. It’s something worth keeping in mind but preferably within reason. It’s also worth remembering that besides the usual jerks there are people who mean well but are complete trash when it comes to communicating - this is another issue with the lack of proper teaching about how to approach criticism in my opinion.
That said, just because someone tries to belittle you for your mistake or can’t provide proper feedback doesn’t mean the actual criticism is wrong. Sure, you shouldn’t take everything people say as complete truth but rather use it for introspection instead. They might have a point, even if they try to use it against you.
I don’t disagree with your point, humans aren’t always a nice and friendly bunch. I do think however that some people use this kind of thinking to shield themselves from accepting their own shortcomings. I used to be terrified of people criticizing my work/knowledge/actions and would react with anger (in my head and towards myself) for letting myself get to this position. It’s something that can be really hard to overcome.
Again, I don’t want to present my way of thinking as the one true way. I was lucky enough I didn’t have to deal with people trying to put me down for their own benefit (or fun) so my mindset is a bit more… idealistic (?) than if I were bullied as a kid or trampled as a coworker. There is no perfect answer and the best I can do is to try doing what I preach.
I’m also interested in how other people approach this question so I’ll be coming back to reading through this thread when I have some time.
That said, just because someone tries to belittle you for your mistake or can’t provide proper feedback doesn’t mean the actual criticism is wrong. Sure, you shouldn’t take everything people say as complete truth but rather use it for introspection instead. They might have a point, even if they try to use it against you.
Even if someone has a point, if they are using it as social aggression you have to expect the other person to get their hackles up and dismiss it, and I don’t think that’s even an unreasonable response since how can they trust someone who is attacking them to be giving their honestly considered judgment rather than just making up something that sounds plausible?
I think the solution has to be building trust. Like establishing that you respect someone and aren’t their enemy before offering criticism, and giving people credit for considering ways they could be wrong.
When people are criticized they experience the same “fight, flight or fawn” response that they do for, you know, real dangers.
It’s a quirk of our biology and I’m not so sure how to get past it as a species.
Ego.
