The preservation of self in everyday life: The effects of performance expectations and feedback context on feedback inquiry

The Double-Edged Sword of Underdog Expectations in Organizations in Shanghai, China: The Mediating Role of Feedback-Avoiding Behaviors and Proving Others Wrong and the Moderating Role of Regulatory Focus

Purpose

According to the traditional view, "underdog expectations" induce self-doubt in employees, resulting in negative effects. However, a new study suggests that underdog expectations may encourage employees to work harder, resulting in positive effects. Based on regulatory focus theory, this study constructed a moderated double-mediation model to explain the "double-edged sword effect" of underdog expectations.

Subjects and Methods

A three-wave survey method and leader-employee pairing method were used to conduct a questionnaire survey among 346 employees drawn from five enterprises in Shanghai, China. Statistical analysis methods, including hierarchical regression analysis, simple slope analysis, and difference analysis, were used for data analysis. SPSS 24.0, Amoss 24.0, and Mplus 7.4 software were employed to test four proposed hypotheses.

Results

Under the positive moderating effect of prevention focus, underdog expectations reduce employee work engagement by adopting an avoidance path of employee feedback-avoiding behaviors(β = 0.090, p < 0.01). Moreover, underdog expectations play a negative role in this situation . Under the positive moderating effect of promotion focus, underdog expectations improve employee work engagement by adopting an approach of proving others wrong (β = 0.189, p < 0.001). Moreover, underdog expectations play a positive role in this situation.

Conclusion

The study results refined the double-sided effects of underdog expectations on employee work engagement and provided theoretical and practical implications for managers on how to motivate employees with underdog expectations and how to better convey expectations to subordinates.

Unpalatable truths: Commitment to eating meat is associated with strategic ignorance of food-animal minds

Animal minds are of central importance to debates about their rights and welfare. Remaining ignorant of evidence that animals have minds is therefore likely to facilitate their mistreatment. Studying samples of adults and students from the UK and US we found that, consistent with motivational perspectives on meat consumption, those who were more (vs. less) committed to eating meat were more motivated to avoid exposure to information about food-animals' sentience (Studies 1), showed less interest in exposure to articles about intelligent food animals (Studies 2a and 2b), and were quicker to terminate exposure to internet pop-ups containing information about food-animals' minds (Studies 3a and 3b). At the same time, those who were more (vs. less) committed to eating meat approached information about companion-animals' minds (Studies 2a-3b) and unintelligent food animals (Studies 2a and 2b) in largely the same ways. The findings demonstrate that, within the UK and US, the desire to eat meat is associated with strategies to avoid information that is likely to challenge meat consumption.

Evaluating the Impact of Positive Implicit Followership towards Employees’ Feedback-Seeking: Based on the Social Information Processing Perspective

Amid the growth of COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs are facing greater uncertainties and pressures to survive because even though they are efficiently managed, their human resource organizations lack a large number of resources and a well-developed training system to foster the sustainable development of employees. Employees are important assets of the company, and their continuous growth and development are keys to the survival of the company. In this context, the individual worker’s assessment of his or her job role and how the assessments drive the employee to exhibit an appropriate proactive work behavior are particularly important. Previous research has typically focused on how organizations and leaders perceive employees but has rarely explored employees’ own implicit followership cognitive states. This study integrates the traits of positive implicit followership of employees, namely, industry trait, enthusiasm trait, and good citizen trait, with perceived supervisor support (PSS) and feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) into one research framework. In this study, 207 valid questionnaires were collected by using offline convenience sampling, and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted. The results show that employees’ industry traits directly and positively influence FSB, while enthusiasm traits and good citizen traits have no direct effect on promoting FSB. In addition, industry trait, enthusiasm trait, and good citizen trait significantly and positively influence PSS, with good citizen trait having the greatest positive effect on PSS. Furthermore, PSS has a significant positive effect on FSB. Finally, PSS was found to mediate between industry traits and FSB. Corresponding to the results of the study, the actions shaping employees’ positive implicit followership cognition and forming a good supportive atmosphere to promote employees’ performance of more feedback-seeking behaviors are recommended.

Exploring the Role of Self-Motives in Postgraduate Trainees' Feedback-Seeking Behavior in the Clinical Workplace: A Multicenter Study of Workplace-Based Assessments From the United Kingdom

PURPOSE

To explore trainees' feedback-seeking behavior in the postgraduate surgical workplace using a self-motives framework. Self-motives include self-assessment "to obtain accurate information about the self," self-improvement "to improve one's traits, abilities, and skills," self-enhancement "to enhance the favorability of self views," and self-verification "to maintain consistency between one's central self-view and new self-relevant information."

METHOD

This project constituted a further framework analysis of previously obtained qualitative focus group data that originally explored trainees' perceptions and use of workplace-based assessment (WBA). Data were collected from multiple centers in the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2013. Content was analyzed to identify references in the data that reflected the above self-motives and in relation to contextual themes identified from within the data.

RESULTS

Trainees' motivations for seeking feedback broadly fit within a self-motives framework. Trainees' feedback seeking using WBA related to self-enhancement and self-verification, whereas outside WBA trainees reported self-improvement and self-assessment motives. Where trainees perceived WBA represented an opportunity to learn, they described a self-improvement motive toward seeking feedback, whereas when WBA represented an assessment of learning, trainees described tensions between self-enhancement and self-improvement motives.

CONCLUSIONS

Surgical trainees' motivations for seeking feedback can be explained using a conceptual self-motives framework. Trainees need to be motivated to seek accurate informational feedback so they can improve their performance within the clinical workplace. To achieve this, trainees need training; current assessment systems must change to allow trainees to seek such feedback without fear and concern about this information being used as an assessment of learning.

The Art (and Artifice) of Seeking Feedback: Clerkship Students' Approaches to Asking for Feedback

PURPOSE

As attention has shifted to learners as significant partners in feedback interactions, it is important to explore what feedback-seeking behaviors medical students use and how the faculty-student relationship affects feedback-seeking behaviors.

METHOD

This qualitative study was inspired by the organizational psychology literature. Third-year medical students were interviewed at Maine Medical Center in April-May 2017 after completing a traditional block rotation clerkship or a nine-month longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC). A constructivist grounded theory approach was used to analyze transcripts and develop themes.

RESULTS

Fourteen students participated (eight LIC, six block rotation). Themes associated with why students sought feedback included goal orientations, perceived benefits and costs, and student and feedback provider characteristics. Factors influencing the way students sought feedback included busy environments, timing, and cues students were attuned to. Students described more inquiry than monitoring approaches and used various indirect and noninquiry techniques (artifice) in asking for feedback. Students did not find summative feedback as helpful as seeking feedback themselves, and they suggested training in seeking feedback would be beneficial. Faculty-student relationship dynamics included several aspects affecting feedback-seeking behaviors, and relationship differences in the LIC and block models affected feedback-seeking behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

Medical students have many motives to seek feedback and adapt their feedback-seeking behaviors to actively participate in an intricate dialogic interaction with feedback providers. Students gradually refine the art (and artifice) of obtaining the specific feedback information that meets their needs. The authors offer a prototype curriculum that may facilitate students' development of feedback-seeking skills.

Responses to Feedback: The Role of Acceptance, Affect, and Creative Behavior

The feedback literature has largely been developed under two divergent assumptions: individuals are either passive receivers or proactive seekers of feedback. We bridge these two literatures using affective events theory and expand understanding of the relationships between feedback delivered as part of a performance evaluation process and self-sought feedback (feedback seeking) by theorizing about feedback through a within-person, episodic lens while focusing on an important organizational behavioral outcome—creative behavior. We offer a dynamic theoretical and empirical account of how feedback acceptance and activating positive affect transmit the effects of supervisor developmental feedback and individuals’ self-sought feedback on creative behavior. We collected 10 days of data using experience sampling methodology to test our hypotheses with a multilevel model. Results revealed that supervisor developmental feedback and self-sought feedback from peers were positively related to feedback acceptance, which, in turn, related to activating positive affect and thereby creative behavior on a within-person basis. Finally, feedback acceptance and activating positive affect mediated the within-person association between feedback and creative behavior. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for better understanding how organizations formally shape individuals’ behavior and how individuals proactively supplement those attempts.

Feedback on Job Performance and Expected Career Advancement

The relation among four sources of job performance feedback and expected frequency of promotion showed employees focused almost exclusively on feedback from the supervisor, even though feedback from the task was more closely associated with employees' evaluations of their own performance. Employees both received and used information the organization was sending, but they used it to predict the organization's behavior not to interpret the quality of their own performance.

The Influence of Managerial Accounts on Employees’ Reactions to Negative Feedback

Despite the prevalent assumption that feedback consistently improves performance, recent scholars have suggested that at times negative feedback can have an unfavorable effect on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. This study proposes that such detrimental effects can be minimized through the use of managerial accounts. The results indicated that the type of account can influence employees’ reactions. Concessions, excuses, and justifications reduced employees’ anger and increased perceived interpersonal fairness; concessions also increased intentions to change behavior. Refusals, in contrast, did not influence employees’ reactions. The influence of excuses was augmented when used in conjunction with concessions but attenuated when combined with refusals. These findings suggest that organizations could benefit from training managers to understand the impact of accounts in the negative feedback context.

Barriers to the uptake and use of feedback in the context of summative assessment

Despite calls for feedback to be incorporated in all assessments, a dichotomy exists between formative and summative assessments. When feedback is provided in a summative context, it is not always used effectively by learners. In this study we explored the reasons for this. We conducted individual interviews with 17 students who had recently received web based feedback following a summative assessment. Constant comparative analysis was conducted for recurring themes. The summative assessment culture, with a focus on avoiding failure, was a dominant and negative influence on the use of feedback. Strong emotions were prevalent throughout the period of assessment and feedback, which reinforced the focus on the need to pass, rather than excel. These affective factors were heightened by interactions with others. The influence of prior learning experiences affected expectations about achievement and the need to use feedback. The summative assessment and subsequent feedback appeared disconnected from future clinical workplace learning. Socio-cultural influences and barriers to feedback need to be understood before attempting to provide feedback after all assessments. A move away from the summative assessment culture may be needed in order to maximise the learning potential of assessments.

Authentic leadership and feedback-seeking behaviour: An examination of the cultural context of mediating processes in China

Despite an increasing number of studies that show a positive relationship between the supportiveness of the feedback source and feedback seeking, little is known about the role that supervisors play in promoting employee feedback-seeking behaviour when they serve as feedback sources. The present article developed a model to fill this void and tested it with data from a sample of 237 supervisor–subordinate dyads. We hypothesized and found that authentic leadership was positively related to feedback-seeking behaviour mediated by both perceived instrumental value and image cost of feedback seeking. The results also demonstrated that employees' individual cultural value of power distance moderated the relationships between authentic leadership and the perceived instrumental value and image cost of feedback seeking.

Authentic leadership and feedback-seeking behaviour: An examination of the cultural context of mediating processes in China

Despite an increasing number of studies that show a positive relationship between the supportiveness of the feedback source and feedback seeking, little is known about the role that supervisors play in promoting employee feedback-seeking behaviour when they serve as feedback sources. The present article developed a model to fill this void and tested it with data from a sample of 237 supervisor–subordinate dyads. We hypothesized and found that authentic leadership was positively related to feedback-seeking behaviour mediated by both perceived instrumental value and image cost of feedback seeking. The results also demonstrated that employees' individual cultural value of power distance moderated the relationships between authentic leadership and the perceived instrumental value and image cost of feedback seeking.

Cognition- and affect-based trust and feedback-seeking behavior: the roles of value, cost, and goal orientations

We examined how subordinates' cognition- and affect-based trust in supervisors influences their feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) by considering the different cost/value perception of FSB and goal orientation (i.e., learning and performance goal orientations). Using data from 194 supervisor-subordinate dyads in South Korea, we conducted multiple regression analyses to test our hypotheses. The results showed that, whereas subordinates' cognition-based trust in supervisors positively influenced their FSB through increasing the perceived value of feedback received from supervisors, their affect-based trust in supervisors positively influenced their FSB through decreasing the perceived value of FSB. Additionally, we found that, when subordinates had high levels of learning goal orientation, the increasing influence of cognition-based trust on the value of feedback was stronger; in contrast, when subordinates had low levels of performance goal orientation, the decreasing influence of affect-based trust on the cost of FSB was stronger. The theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research were discussed.

Clarifying students' feedback-seeking behaviour in clinical clerkships

CONTEXT

Why and how do students seek feedback on their performance in the clinical workplace and which factors influence this? These questions have remained largely unanswered in research into workplace learning during clinical clerkships. Research on feedback has focused mainly on feedback providers. Whether and how feedback recipients actively seek feedback are under-examined issues. Research in organisational psychology has proposed a mechanism whereby feedback seeking is influenced by motives and goal orientation mediated by the perceived costs and benefits of feedback. Building on a recently published model of resident doctors' feedback-seeking behaviour, we conducted a qualitative study to explore students' feedback-seeking behaviours in the clinical workplace.

METHODS

Between April and June 2011, we conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews with veterinary medicine students in Years 5 and 6 about their feedback-seeking behaviour during clinical clerkships. In the interviews, 14 students were asked about their goals and motives for seeking feedback, the characteristics of their feedback-seeking behaviour and factors influencing that behaviour. Using template analysis, we coded the interview transcripts and iteratively reduced and displayed the data until agreement on the final template was reached.

RESULTS

The students described personal and interpersonal factors to explain their reasons for seeking feedback. The factors related to intentions and the characteristics of the feedback provider, and the relationship between the feedback seeker and provider. Motives relating to image and ego, particularly when students thought that feedback might have a positive effect on image and ego, influenced feedback-seeking behaviour and could induce specific behaviours related to students' orientation towards particular sources of feedback, their orientation towards particular topics for and timing of feedback, and the frequency and method of feedback-seeking behaviour.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows that during clinical clerkships, students actively seek feedback according to personal and interpersonal factors. Perceived costs and benefits influenced this active feedback-seeking behaviour. These results may contribute towards the optimising and developing of meaningful educational opportunities during clerkships.

Counterfactual Seeking

Decision makers faced with an opportunity to learn the outcome of a foregone alternative must balance anticipated regret, should that information be unfavorable, with the potential benefits of this information in reducing experienced regret. Counterfactual seeking, the choice to learn more about foregone alternatives, may be a functional, regret-regulating strategy for individuals already experiencing regret. Counterfactual seeking increases in response to dissatisfying outcomes (Studies 1 and 2). Counterfactual seeking is generally able to reduce dissatisfaction (Study 2), regardless of whether individuals personally chose to view this information or were randomly assigned to do so (Study 3). Moreover, both imaginative (vs. factual) thoughts about the foregone option and upward (vs. downward) counterfactual thoughts play a role in this improvement in satisfaction (Study 4). Regret thus has a complex influence in how individuals engage with counterfactual information.

Information Avoidance: Who, What, When, and Why

Although acquiring information can provide numerous benefits, people often opt to remain ignorant. We define information avoidance as any behavior designed to prevent or delay the acquisition of available but potentially unwanted information. We review the various literatures that examine information avoidance and provide a unique framework to integrate the contributions of these disparate areas of research. We first define information avoidance and distinguish it from related phenomena. We then discuss the motivations that prompt information avoidance and the factors that moderate the likelihood of avoidance. Finally, we discuss individual differences that predict preferences for information avoidance. We conclude by evaluating the current state of research on information avoidance and discussing directions for future research.

The Mediating Role of Feedback Avoidance Behavior in the LMX—Performance Relationship

The literature on leader—member exchange theory (LMX) has consistently demonstrated the positive relationship between member perceptions of the quality of their relationship with the leader and member performance. The process through which relationship quality influences member performance, however, is still not fully understood.The present study provides an explanatory mechanism for this process. Specifically, feedback avoiding behavior, a feedback management strategy used by poor performers to minimize exposure to negative feedback from their leaders, fully mediates the relationship between LMX and member performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Gender Influences as an Impediment to Knowledge Sharing: When Men and Women Fail to Seek Peer Feedback

Little research has considered how work team characteristics influence feedback-seeking behavior among team members. The authors' aim in this research was to identify central sources of influence on feedback-seeking behavior in a mixed-gender context. They placed men and women in work groups of varying gender composition. The participants then participated in a gender-biased (perceived as either male-oriented or female-oriented) negotiation exercise. Findings indicated that the gender of the participant, the team's gender composition, and the gender orientation of the task influenced feedback-seeking behavior among team members.

Factors that influence line managers' perceptions of hospital performance data

OBJECTIVE

To design and test a model of the factors that influence frontline and midlevel managers' perceptions of usefulness of comparative reports of hospital performance.

STUDY SETTING

A total of 344 frontline and midlevel managers with responsibility for stroke and medical cardiac patients in 89 acute care hospitals in the Canadian province of Ontario.

STUDY DESIGN

Fifty-nine percent of managers responded to a mail survey regarding managers' familiarity with a comparative report of hospital performance, ratings of the report's data quality, relevance and complexity, improvement culture of the organization, and perceptions of usefulness of the report.

EXTRACTION METHODS

Exploratory factor analysis was performed to assess the dimensionality of performance data characteristics and improvement culture. Antecedents of perceived usefulness and the role of improvement culture as a moderator were tested using hierarchical regression analyses.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Both data characteristics variables including data quality, relevance, and report complexity, as well as organizational factors including dissemination intensity and improvement culture, explain significant amounts of variance in perceptions of usefulness of comparative reports of hospital performance. The total R2 for the full hierarchical regression model = .691. Improvement culture moderates the relationship between data relevance and perceived usefulness.

CONCLUSIONS

Organizations and those who fund and design performance reports need to recognize that both report characteristics and organizational context play an important role in determining line managers' response to and ability to use these types of data.

Self-efficacy as a moderator of information-seeking effectiveness

The authors assessed previously unexplored processes by which information seeking and self-efficacy contribute to self-regulatory effectiveness in industrial selling. They assessed the synergistic interaction of inquiry and monitoring with respect to role clarity and tested whether this interaction was further moderated by self-efficacy. Results indicated that the role-clarifying effects of feedback inquiry and monitoring were contingent rather than independent. Role clarity increased as the combination of inquiry and monitoring increased. Furthermore, these joint effects were moderated by self-efficacy, such that high-self-efficacy employees were able to effectively use the combination of inquiry and monitoring to clarify role expectations, whereas low-self-efficacy employees were not. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.