Why do people get mad if they are corrected/proven wrong?

[DemisexualHulk]

A lot of people hate to be wrong because they are fragile souls. I should know. I'm only 22 and I know when I'm wrong and I need something to be corrected.

[Sally]

Ravako, on 28 Oct 2013 - 5:45 PM, said:

If you're consistently being seen as off-putting in a conversation for correcting people, you are probably the actual problem in the situation. There are polite ways to correct someone and there are rude, know-it-all ways. I don't care how smart you are or how wrong the other person is, if you lack tact in these sort of situations you're almost always going to come off as in the wrong.

I used to be of the opinion of "if they're wrong, they should know they're wrong," but you know what? No. No, they really don't. Let the wrong be wrong. Would that be so bad? Besides, I grew out of it...eventually. But for a while I was an insufferable know-it-all. You know the type. Those who take a minor, unnecessary detail of something you said, and completely derail the entire discussion because of their compulsion to correct and fact-check everything said in a single sentence.

Before you correct someone, you should ask yourself these things:

Is this correction necessary? (is this an important thing they need to know?)

Is this correction relevant? (is this the topic of discussion and therefore will actually add to the conversation rather than completely derail it?)

Why does this need corrected? (if the answer to this is only "they're wrong" rather than any ACTUAL reason, I highly suggest aborting your efforts here)

And, in my opinion, this is the most important one: Are they talking to me? You have no idea how rude it is to have some eavesdropper suddenly jump into a conversation going "Well, actually X, Y, Z..." Hey, random stranger, if you're offended by how incorrect the statement someone who isn't talking to you is, you should probably not be listening in. This might be a little different if you know the people, but whatever. Best judgements and whatnot.

In other words, social interaction is a two-way street. If someone dislikes what you tell them, consider that perhaps you didn't handle the situation the best. Consider that perhaps what you said/corrected was unnecessary and mostly just annoying. Other times they'll just dislike being proven wrong. Whatever. Ignore those people.

[sanremi52890]

What I should have said in response to this thread initially was, "egocentricity -- theirs or yours". :p

[Guest Scarlet Spider]

Tbh I never really want to be proven wrong in any case, but that's just because I have a massive ego. However, the only time I think i'd have a problem with is someone correcting me while i'm in a rather intense debate (while being against me). I'd almost feel even angrier at them for arguing with me only to undermine me and correct something of mine via grammar, context, or information.