Effects of expectations about evaluation and peer recommendations on students' ratings

Previous research on consumer satisfaction suggests that the anticipation of providing a later evaluation leads to more negative appraisals. Within the context of higher education, the current experiment focused on the evaluation of a presentation and its presenter. College students (35 men, 59 women) were randomly assigned to six conditions regarding evaluative expectations and peer recommendations. Students watched a brief video of a lecture on an educational topic and then evaluated the speaker and presentation. Anticipation of providing evaluations did not influence the subsequent evaluations; however, peers' positive recommendations led to more positive evaluations whereas negative recommendations led to more negative evaluations.