The Moderating Effect of Achievement Motive on Performance Feedback in Choices of Challenging Tasks

Author(s):  
Sergeja Slapničar ◽  
Karla Oblak ◽  
Mina Ličen

Successful employee engagement in cognitively challenging tasks is a driving force of performance in modern organizations. Research has shown that performance feedback can be a powerful management control tool to stimulate engagement in such tasks; however, little is known about how individuals with different achievement motive respond to it. This paper examines the main and interactive effects of achievement motive and performance feedback on engagement in tasks that become progressively more challenging. We designed a within-subject experiment deploying an increasingly difficult cognitive task. We find that feedback is a key determinant of engagement in challenging tasks, as the main effect and in the interaction with achievement motive. Failure feedback discourages individuals with low achievement motive more than those with high achievement motive. Success feedback strongly encourages individuals to engage in a challenging task and levels out differences in achievement motive.

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 465-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja S. Stucke

The study examined the relationship between narcissism, performance attributions, and negative emotions following success or failure. As expected, narcissistic individuals showed more self‐serving attributions for their performance in an intelligence test than less narcissistic individuals: compared with less narcissistic individuals, narcissists revealed a stronger tendency to attribute success to ability and failure to task difficulty. In contrast to this, less narcissistic participants tended to show the opposite pattern by ascribing failure, but not success, to their ability. Additionally, anger and depression could be predicted by an interaction of performance feedback and performance attributions. Mediation analyses revealed that the attribution dimensions ‘task difficulty’ and ‘ability’ mediated the effect of narcissism on anger and depression following failure feedback. The results provide support for the theoretical assumption that attributional processes might, at least to some extent, explain the often reported relation between narcissism and negative emotions following failure. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 797-809
Author(s):  
Laura Schmitz ◽  
Erik Bijleveld ◽  
Harm Veling

Abstract When do people want something back for their mental labor? Based on equity theory, we propose that conscious experiences of success and effort—which emerge during cognitive work—shape people’s subsequent desire for social and monetary rewards. We examined this idea in a series of experiments, in which participants carried out a cognitive task, in which we manipulated task difficulty (easy vs. difficult) and performance feedback (high vs. low) within subjects. After each trial of this task, we probed people’s desire for compensation, in terms of social appreciation or money. Findings were in line with the entitlement hypothesis, which assumes that the experience of success can cause people to feel entitled to money. However, we found only indirect support for the effort compensation hypothesis, which assumes that the feeling of effort increases the subsequent desire for compensation, and no support for the intrinsic reward hypothesis, which assumes that people desire less social appreciation after already having experienced success. When considered together, our results suggest that labor-related feelings (of success and effort) shape people’s subsequent desire for money and social appreciation in several ways. These findings have potential implications for the effective use of performance feedback in work contexts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 196-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Almut Rudolph ◽  
Michela Schröder-Abé ◽  
Astrid Schütz

Abstract. In five studies, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a revised German version of the State Self-Esteem Scale (SSES; Heatherton & Polivy, 1991 ). In Study 1, the results of a confirmatory factor analysis on the original scale revealed poor model fit and poor construct validity in a student sample that resembled those in the literature; thus, a revised 15-item version was developed (i.e., the SSES-R) and thoroughly validated. Study 2 showed a valid three-factor structure (Performance, Social, and Appearance) and good internal consistency of the SSES-R. Correlations between subscales of trait and state SE empirically supported the scale’s construct validity. Temporal stability and intrapersonal sensitivity of the scale to naturally occurring events were investigated in Study 3. Intrapersonal sensitivity of the scale to experimentally induced changes in state SE was uncovered in Study 4 via social feedback (acceptance vs. rejection) and performance feedback (positive vs. negative). In Study 5, the scale’s interpersonal sensitivity was confirmed by comparing depressed and healthy individuals. Finally, the usefulness of the SSES-R was demonstrated by assessing SE instability as calculated from repeated measures of state SE.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remus Ilies ◽  
Timothy A. Judge ◽  
David T. Wagner

This paper focuses on explaining how individuals set goals on multiple performance episodes, in the context of performance feedback comparing their performance on each episode with their respective goal. The proposed model was tested through a longitudinal study of 493 university students’ actual goals and performance on business school exams. Results of a structural equation model supported the proposed conceptual model in which self-efficacy and emotional reactions to feedback mediate the relationship between feedback and subsequent goals. In addition, as expected, participants’ standing on a dispositional measure of behavioral inhibition influenced the strength of their emotional reactions to negative feedback.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016264342199410
Author(s):  
Jordan Yassine ◽  
Leigh Ann Tipton-Fisler

Check-in/Check-Out (CICO) has a long line of research evidence demonstrating its effectiveness in increasing prosocial behavior. The current paper demonstrated an electronic application of CICO utilizing Google Sheets® with teacher feedback. Google Sheets® offers an inexpensive, collaborative, and remote method for tracking behaviors. In the first study, 2,322 teacher ratings (from 38 teachers) were compared between traditional paper CICO forms or electronic Google Sheets®. Results found that teacher ratings were significantly more complete with the use of the electronic forms. In the second study, an electronic CICO form was used for progress monitoring and performance feedback with a middle school student. Through the form we were able to successfully track our participant’s behavior change in response to CICO with the combination of feedback and a differential reinforcement intervention. Social validity showed that overall teacher ratings were high with respect to ease of use, usefulness, cost-effectiveness, and convenience of the electronic Google Sheets®.


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