How Positive and Negative Feedback Motivate Goal Pursuit

This article explores the feedback individuals give, seek, and respond to in the course of pursuing their goals. We propose that positive feedback motivates goal pursuit when it signals an increase in goal commitment, whereas negative feedback motivates goal pursuit when it signals insufficient goal progress. We review research suggesting that whether individuals are drawn to evaluate their level of commitment versus rate of progress determines the type of feedback (positive or negative) that best motivates them to pursue their goals. We then review research suggesting that these effects of feedback operate by inducing positive and negative general moods as well as specific emotions.     

Allure of negative feedback: self-verification strivings among depressed persons.

We propose that people with negative self-views are rejected because they gravitate to partners who view them unfavorably. In relation to nondepressed college students (n = 28), depressives (n = 13) preferred interaction partners who evaluated them unfavorably (Study 1). Similarly, in relation to nondepressives (n = 106), depressives (n = 10) preferred friends or dating partners who evaluated them unfavorably (Study 2). Dysphorics (n = 6) were more inclined to seek unfavorable feedback from their roommates than were nondepressives (n = 16); feedback-seeking activities of dysphorics were also associated with later rejection (Study 3). Finally, people with negative self-views (n = 37) preferentially solicited unfavorable feedback, although receiving such feedback made them unhappy, in comparison with people with positive self-views (n = 42; Study 4). It seems a desire for self-verification compels people with negative self-views to seek unfavorable appraisals.     

“I know you can do this” versus “How can you be so stupid?” Feedback among Chinese and American young adult friends

According to past research, young adults prefer positive feedback from their friends, but emotional reactions to negative feedback are less severe in Korea than in the United States. We extended this past work in several ways: We studied both giving and receiving feedback, recruited Chinese young adults, used realistic scenarios, and employed the situation‐sampling method. Using text‐message‐based vignettes, Study 1 found that both American and Chinese friends used happy emojis when exchanging positive feedback whereas Americans used less positive emojis than did the Chinese when exchanging negative feedback. We then collected actual examples of feedback that people had given to their friends (Study 2a) and showed them to new samples of Chinese and American young adults (Study 2b). This situation‐sampling methodology found that (a) Americans rated negative feedback from both cultures especially negatively, and (b) negative feedback examples from China were rated especially negatively by people in both cultures. That is, although Chinese negative feedback is seemingly more harsh, Chinese young adults do not react as negatively.     

Agreeable fancy or disagreeable truth? Reconciling self-enhancement and self-verification

Three studies asked why people sometimes seek positive feedback (self-enhance) and sometimes seek subjectively accurate feedback (self-verify). Consistent with self-enhancement theory, people with low self-esteem as well as those with high self-esteem indicated that they preferred feedback pertaining to their positive rather than negative self-views. Consistent with self-verification theory, the very people who sought favorable feedback pertaining to their positive self-conceptions sought unfavorable feedback pertaining to their negative self-views, regardless of their level of global self-esteem. Apparently, although all people prefer to seek feedback regarding their positive self-views, when they seek feedback regarding their negative self-views, they seek unfavorable feedback. Whether people self-enhance or self-verify thus seems to be determined by the positivity of the relevant self-conceptions rather than their level of self-esteem or the type of person they are.     

Daily Interactions and Affect in Older Adulthood: Family,Friends, and Perceived Support

Research suggests that family and friend support differentially impact well-being, although relatively few studies investigate how these relationships function day-to-day. The first goal of the study was to explore how interactions with family and with friends related to individuals’ daily experience of positive and negative emotion. The second goal of the study was to determine whether the perception that others were available to provide a particular type of support moderated the relationship between friend and family support and well-being each day. Multilevel Random Coefficient Modeling illuminated these linkages in data from 96 participants from Successful Aging in Context: The Macroenvironment and Daily Lived Experience (M _Age = 67 years, SD _Age = 4.9 years; range 58–86 years). Results revealed significant relationships between affect balance and satisfaction with the amount of support provided by family and by friends; in general, older adults reported a higher ratio of positive to negative affect on days they were more satisfied with the amount of support received from each source. Results of Level-2 analyses suggested that the perception that others were available to provide tangible assistance strengthened the relationship between satisfaction with family support and daily well-being; likewise, the availability of emotional support and advice strengthened the daily friend support–affect balance association. Overall, results suggest that global perceptions that network members are available to provide different types of support differentially augment the relationships between the social support older adults receive from friends and family each day and well-being; in so doing, these results suggest ways in which older adults can benefit most from existing support.     

Goal regulation across time: the effects of feedback and affect

This research focused on the processes individuals use to regulate their goals across time. Two studies examined goal regulation following task performance with 6 samples of participants in a series of 8-trial task performance experiments. The experiments involved: (a) 3 task types, (b) 2 goal types, and (c) actual or manipulated performance feedback referring to the focal participant's own performance or to the participant's performance compared with others' performance. Applying multilevel methods, the authors examined (a) how performance feedback influences subsequent goals within individuals across both negative and positive performance feedback ranges, and (b) the mediating role of affect in explaining the relationship between feedback and subsequent goal setting. Results showed that participants adjusted their goals downwardly following negative feedback and created positive goal-performance discrepancies by raising their goals following positive feedback. In each sample, affect mediated substantial proportions of the feedback-goals relationship within individuals.     

Remembering Friends as Not So Friendly in Competitive and Bargaining Social Interactions

From children's schoolyard play to executives' boardroom negotiations, competitive and bargaining interactions are common to everyday life. Sometimes, the interacting parties are socially close and sometimes not. In this research, we examine how friendship influences memory for actions in such interactions. Dyads consisting of either friends or strangers played a competitive card game (Study 1) or the ultimatum game (Studies 2 and 4) and then recalled the interaction. We find that participants remembered friends' play as more competitive (Study 1) and less generous (Studies 2 and 4) than strangers' play, even when friends' actual play was more generous than that of strangers (Studies 2 and 4). Friendship did not affect recall for one's own play. In a workplace setting, Study 3 reveals people expect more of work colleagues who are friends than of work colleagues who are acquaintances. Study 4 tests our complete model and shows that people expect more of friends than of strangers and that this difference in expectations explains the less favorable memory for friend's actions. Our findings are consistent with a negative disconfirmation account whereby people expect their friends to be less competitive and more generous, and when these expectations are violated, people remember friends' actions more negatively than they actually were. Much research shows positive effects of friendship norms on actual behavior. We demonstrate a negative effect on people's memory of friends' behavior in competitive and bargaining social interactions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotional competence and willingness to seek help from professional and nonprofessional sources

We sought to determine the relationship between emotional competence and willingness to seek help for emotional problems and suicidal ideation. A survey of 300 university undergraduates assessed emotional competence (skill at emotion perception, managing self-relevant emotions, and managing others' emotions), hopelessness, willingness to seek help from health professionals (e.g. counsellor) and nonprofessionals (friends, family), and perceived usefulness of past help-seeking experience. Those who reported feeling less skilled at managing emotions were less willing to seek help from family and friends for both emotional problems and suicidal ideation and less willing to seek help from health professionals for suicidal ideation. These relationships held even after controlling for hopelessness, sex, and past help-seeking experience. Mediational analysis suggested that people low in managing others' emotions were less willing to seek help from professionals because they had had poorer experiences with mental health professionals in the past. There was no significant relationship between emotion perception skill and willingness to seek help. People most likely to be in need of help (those poor at managing emotions) were the least willing to seek it, and if they did seek it, were the least likely to benefit from it.     

Gratitude to God,Self‐Rated Health,and Depressive Symptoms

This study has three goals. The first is to see whether the opportunity to engage in volunteer work at church fosters friendships with co‐religionists. The second goal is to see whether the support these friends provide bolsters feelings of gratitude to God. The third goal is to see whether feelings of gratitude to God are associated with health and depressive symptoms. The following linkages in our conceptual model elaborate and extend these objectives: (1) people who go to church more often will be more likely to participate in volunteer work through their congregations; (2) individuals who perform volunteer work at church will have more friends among their co‐religionists; (3) people who have more friends where they worship will report receiving more emotional support from fellow congregants; (4) those who receive more support from co‐religionists will feel more grateful to God; and (5) individuals who are more grateful to God will rate their health in a more favorable manner and experience fewer symptoms of depression. Data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey provide support for each of these relationships.     

When is being known or adored by romantic partners most beneficial? Self-perceptions, relationship length, and responses to partner's verifying and enhancing appraisals

An experiment tested the hypothesis that relationship length moderates preferences for both verifying and enhancing appraisals from romantic partners, particularly for people with negative self-perceptions. One hundred and three romantically involved couples participated in this research. Participants with both negative and positive self-perceptions were randomly assigned to receive either verifying or enhancing feedback ostensibly created through comparison of their self-ratings and their partner's appraisals. The critical test was for those with negative self-ratings who received verifying feedback. For these participants, results revealed that those in longer relationships felt their partners were seeing the best in them more than did those in shorter relationships, whereas the opposite pattern of results was observed for those who were enhanced. Individuals with negative self-ratings who were verified also reported greater feelings of intimacy in the relationship when in long-term relationships. The importance of relationship length in moderating responses to partner's appraisals is discussed.     

They May Disapprove,but I Still Love You: Attachment Behaviors Moderate the Effect of Social Disapproval on Marital Relationship Quality

The degree of approval for a relationship from one’s social network has been shown to predict relationship outcomes. Additional research has shown that attachment can buffer the negative effects of various factors (e.g., depression) on relationships. Using an actor–partner interdependence model in an SEM framework, we research the effects of disapproval from parents and friends for one’s relationship on marital relationship quality for self and partner in a sample of 858 married couples. We also examine whether each spouse’s attachment behaviors can moderate these effects. Results indicated that one’s own attachment behaviors moderate the effects of their own parents’ and friends’ disapproval on their self-reported relationship quality for both men and women. Partner’s attachment behaviors moderate own friend’s disapproval on self-reported relationship quality for men and women; additionally, the main effect of partner’s friends’ and parents’ disapproval became nonsignificant with that test. The findings provide evidence that attachment behaviors of both partners play a role in buffering the negative effects of the social network disapproval on relationship outcomes. Clinical implications are discussed.     

The Motivational Function of Regulatory Focus in Creativity

The Regulatory Focus Theory maintains that people may focus on achieving positive outcomes (have a promotion focus) or avoiding negative ones (have a prevention focus) when they pursue their goals. Under a promotion focus, people would formulate as many strategies as possible to attain their goal, and hence be fluent in idea generation when they perform a creative task. In contrast, people under a prevention focus would seek to avoid the negative consequences of failing to attain a valued goal, and persist even when the likelihood of success in a creativity situation is small. We tested these predictions in a study, where regulatory focus was measured as an individual differences variable (Part 1) and induced by a goal framing manipulation (Part 2). The results supported our predictions, and suggested that creative accomplishment requires flexible alternation of regulatory foci at the different stages of creative undertakings.     

Seeking self-evaluative feedback: the interactive role of global self-esteem and specific self-views

People who verify a negative self-view expose themselves to criticism and rejection. Because people with low global self-esteem are hurt more by negative feedback than are people with high global self-esteem, the authors predicted that they would be less apt to verify a negative self-view in a more specific domain. Three investigations found support for this hypothesis. In all 3 investigations, high self-esteem participants sought (or tended to seek) self-verifying feedback, even if it was negative, but low self-esteem participants sought (or tended to seek) positive feedback, even if it was nonself-verifying. These findings show that low self-esteem people are especially concerned with self-protection and that global self-esteem and specific self-views interact to guide people's responses to self-evaluative feedback.     

Recherche de feedback et performance au travail : l’effet modérateur des orientations vers les objectifs

This paper examines the relationship between the search for positive and negative feedback and job performance, as rated by supervisors, as a function of employees’ goal orientations (learning, performance, and avoidance). Based on a study among 197 employees from various industries, the relationship between the search for positive feedback and job performance was found to be stronger and positive when either learning, performance, or avoidance goal orientation was high, revealing the effects consistently favorable of positive feedback. In contrast, the search for negative feedback exerted a negative effect on job performance among employees who held a high performance goal orientation. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the effects of feedback-seeking behavior on job performance.     

Goal Orientation and Feedback Congruence: Effects on Discretionary Effort and Achievement

This study examines the differential effects of outcome feedback for achievement goal orientations' relationship with effort and achievement. In support of our predictions, learning goal orientation had a positive relationship with task achievement in the absence of outcome feedback and a negative relationship in its presence, while performance goal orientation maintained a positive relationship with achievement regardless of whether outcome feedback was provided. We attribute this to a decrease in task interest when initial task purpose, as determined by personal goal orientation, is incongruent with the subsequent task cues provided by outcome feedback. Predictions regarding task effort and combined goal orientation effects were not supported. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Self-esteem reactions to social interactions: evidence for sociometer mechanisms across days, people, and nations

People have a fundamental need to belong that motivates them to seek out social interactions with close others (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Leary and Baumeister's (2000) sociometer theory (SMT) poses that people who succeed in satisfying this need have higher self-esteem (SE). This prediction was tested across three hierarchical levels: intraindividual, interindividual, and international. Indicators of social interaction quantity, quality, and the interaction between quality and quantity were collected for relationships with friends, family members, and romantic partners. On the intraindividual level, relationship quality and the interaction between quantity and quality emerged as significant predictors of daily fluctuations in SE. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that this association is at least partly due to the effect of social inclusion on changes in SE. On an interindividual level, people who generally reported higher quality relationships also had higher levels of trait SE. On an international level, countries whose inhabitants regularly interact with friends were characterized by higher nationwide SE levels than countries without such practices, even when happiness, individualism, gross domestic product, and neuroticism were controlled.     

Do difficulties with emotions inhibit help-seeking in adolescence? The role of age and emotional competence in predicting help-seeking intentions

We examined whether adolescents who are poor at identifying, describing, and managing their emotions (emotional competence) have lower intentions to seek help for their personal-emotional problems and suicidal ideation, as observed in adult studies. We also examined whether age moderated the relationship between competence and help-seeking. Two hundred and seventeen adolescents completed measures of emotional competence, help-seeking, hopelessness, and social support. Results indicated that adolescents who were low in emotional competence had the lowest intentions to seek help from informal sources (i.e., family and friends) and from some formal sources (e.g., mental health professionals), and the highest intentions to seek help from no-one. There was one important age-related qualification: difficulty in identifying and describing emotions was associated with higher help-seeking intentions amongst young adolescents but lower intentions among older adolescents. Social support, hopelessness, and sex could not entirely explain these relationships. Thus, even those who had high quality social support had less intention to use it if they were low in emotional competence.     

Empirical tests of aspects of a theory of love as a story

We provide empirical tests of aspects of a theory of love as a story. According to this theory, people develop—as an interaction between their personality and their experiences—stories of what they believe loving relationships should be. Examples of such stories are addiction, mystery, police, and travel stories. They then seek out and find greatest satisfaction with partners whose stories correspond more closely with their own. The data from two studies indicate that the theory and instrument have some promise for understanding people's ways of conceptualizing love. In particular, couples involved in intimate relationships tend to share similar profiles of love stories; the more similar the stories of two members of a couple, the more likely they are to be satisfied with their relationship. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Support,Reciprocity, and Weil-Being

Abstract

Systematic random-sampling procedures were used to gather a sample of 191 community residents in Kaohsiung city, Taiwan, and survey them regarding (a) amount of social support given and received; (b) perceived reciprocity of support in relationships with family members, friends, and colleagues; (c) negative affect; and (d) psychological symptoms. Extraversion and social desirability were also measured. Both receiving and giving support were related to negative affect after controlling for the effects of extraversion and social desirability. These two personality factors also substantially masked the negative impact of support on psychological symptoms. Reciprocity of support within the family domain was related to well-being. Individual differences in support exchanges were noted, and women received more support than men.     

Interpersonal feedback in everyday life: Empirical studies in Germany and the United States

The present research examines occurrences of interpersonal feedback in everyday life. Drawing upon retrospective self-reports from three student samples in Germany and the US, we investigate why, how, and with what effect such feedback is shared. We found that feedback was common, occurring mostly within stable interpersonal relationships, and that positive feedback was reported to occur more often than negative feedback. Positive and negative feedback was provided to achieve different goals (acknowledgement vs. behavioral change), and feedback senders perceived negative feedback as less successful than positive feedback. Negative feedback was withheld primarily when potential senders perceived it as futile or potentially dangerous to their relationship with the recipient. However, negative feedback that was shared was not seen as particularly harmful in that regard. We discuss potential barriers to feedback effectiveness, whether and how the exchange of interpersonal feedback in everyday life may be promoted, and give recommendations for future research.