The impact of evaluation feedback on affective and behavioural reactions

A study was conducted to examine the impact of outcome (success or failure) and attribution information cues (none, internal, external) on affective and behavioural reactions to performance feedback. Following the theorizing of Weiner, Russell, and Lerman (1978, 1979) and Liden and Mitchell (1985), it was predicted that the outcome manipulation would determine a global affective reaction and that the attribution information cues manipulation would polarize these reactions. Sixty university undergraduate students were randomly assigned to success of failure on a practice and final creativity test and were induced to attribute their performance to internal or external causes depending on attribution information type condition. The results indicated that successful participants reported greater positive affect; evaluated the task, the feedback, the experimenter, and the experiment more favourably; and expressed a greater willingness to attempt more problems and participate in future psychological studies than did unsuccessful participants. However, in some instances, these effects were moderated by the type of information provided with the feedback. Thus, the results indicated that there are both outcome- and attribution-dependent effects on affective and behavioral responses to outcomes