But the obstinates are mostly failing. So it can't be important to them to be right. It's more important to them to be consistent. Changing your mind about something to them is backpedaling. They are letting down everyone else who believes the same stuff.
Probably some obstinates fell for the all-American "believe in yourself" nonsense. If you just have confidence and believe in yourself, you will succeed in spite of setbacks.
The obstinate interprets that as never changing one's mind; if you change your mind, then that means you didn't believe in yourself and are letting down everyone who believed in the same program.
I believe there is a "trying too hard". Solving a worthwhile problem itself might be difficult enough to begin with, but trying to map out a solution plan and stubbornly make every checkpoint a success along the way statistically leads to failure.
Every single step has a chance of ("perfect") success that is not 100%. The more steps, the lower the overall chance of hitting the original problem/solution with the exact path of steps. And if the original plan contains a dead end one could not foresee, people give up at some point alltogether.
But persistence simply means more like "lets take multiple shots at solving the problem", discovering stuff along the way, pivot the strategy or change direction, but ultimately just trying to solve the problem X times, which over time increases the chance of solving it.
I don't think this is true. For the majority of tasks which are small and relatively easy, both obstinate and persistent people will hit the winning solution on the first try and can't be distinguished.
It's only when you hit a really large or hard problem that these psychological differences start being more apparent.
Probably some obstinates fell for the all-American "believe in yourself" nonsense. If you just have confidence and believe in yourself, you will succeed in spite of setbacks.
The obstinate interprets that as never changing one's mind; if you change your mind, then that means you didn't believe in yourself and are letting down everyone who believed in the same program.