Culture,personality, and reactions to praise and criticism1

An empirical study was designed to investigate the effects of personality and sociocultural background on reactions to positive and negative performance feedback. Eighty college students of two sociocultural backgrounds (Mexican- and Anglo-American) were asked to work on a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and were then either praised or criticized, ostensibly according to their “problem-solving strategies,” but actually on the basis of random assignment to either condition. Seven dependent variables were included, representing various reactions to the feedback. Four-way analyses of variance were conducted on each dependent measure with the independent variables being type of feedback, locus of control, sex of subject, and ethnicity. In addition to consistent main effects for feedback, the results revealed that reactions to feedback, particularly criticism, are often mediated by personality and/or sociocultural factors. The findings are discussed in relation to previous literature and the need to take a sociocultural perspective in psychological research is emphasized.