Peer evaluation: The effect of reciprocity and level of performance on evaluative feedback

The study was designed to examine the impact of reciprocal evaluation, a factor which differentiates the relational aspect of peer and supervisor evaluation contexts, and level of performance on the accuracy of performance ratings. One hundred and thirty-six undergraduate students evaluated standardized solutions on an \u27Organizational Problem Solving Task\u27 which demonstrated either a poor or a satisfactory level of performance, under one of two rating conditions. In one rating condition, participants were told that they would simply evaluate another person\u27s performance on the task (non-reciprocal rating condition). In the other rating condition, participants were informed that not only would they rate another person\u27s performance on the task, but that they would also complete the task themselves and be rated on it by the person whose performance they just rated (reciprocal rating condition). As hypothesized, participants in reciprocal evaluation conditions rated performance as significantly more positive than those in non-reciprocal evaluation conditions. Furthermore, an evaluation condition by performance level interaction revealed that participants in reciprocal rating conditions provided significantly more positive ratings than those in non-reciprocal rating conditions when the performance they rated was poor. However, there was no significant difference between the ratings of those in reciprocal and non-reciprocal rating conditions when the performance they rated was satisfactory. The results are discussed in relation to the effect of level of performance and reciprocal evaluation on performance ratings