There is no doubt that when you receive a compliment, you feel good and when you receive a criticism, you feel upset and want to refuse it.
You shouldn't be surprised by your reaction to the negative comment, as it's human's survival mechanism to avoid being criticized. Clearly, we don't want to be seen as failures, so we'd rather shut our eyes and cover our ears than have to take any criticisms from others.
Imagine you're learning to play the guitar, and you have just done your first public performance. Your teacher says, "You did well," which may not be as useful in helping you improve your performance skills as "Your timing needs some work." So I believe that criticisms are better than compliments.
No one would argue that healthy nutrition is a bad thing. However, too much food or drink — no matter how healthy they may be — can make us ill. Too many compliments take us away from our original enthusiasm of enjoying an activity. We start doing the activity only for the sake of receiving self-satisfying praise. Without the expectation of praise, our enthusiasm to complete things begins to be lost.
Launched in 2010, Microsoft KIN only lasted on the market for 48 days. It was very obvious that most 15 to 30-year-olds preferred Androids, BlackBerrys and iPhones to the Microsoft KIN. If criticism and feedback from the target group had been received while the phone was in development, Microsoft KIN could have avoided the huge embarrassment and its final failure.
Just to be clear, I'm talking about constructive criticism, which I like to think of as "healthy criticism". The right kind of criticism is honest feedback that will benefit you. Feedback forces you to reconsider your actions and the way you work. If you use constructive criticism wisely, it can guide you away from bad practices, giving you support and courage to move forward to be a better person in the future.
