I talk a lot on here about making mistakes, generally from the angle of “try hard to learn from your mistakes”. That certainly holds true, but there is some evidence that intentionally making mistakes can be helpful too.
The Derring Effect
A paper from the American Psychological Association showed that when students were instructed to intentionally make mistakes in their studies, and then correct them, they remembered the content better than others. This is known as the derring effect.
From the paper:
deliberately committing and correcting errors even when we know the correct answers enhances learning
Mistakes can be a great thing. If you’re generating a lot of ideas and make mistakes along the way, that’s something you shouldn’t hide from.
Going further, if you’re trying to learn specific information, making some mistakes on purpose (and correcting them properly) will help cement those new ideas in your head.
You can read more about these findings in this article from Psychology Today.
