You Are (NOT) Your Mistakes: Downstream Consequences of Essentialist and Behavioral Work Feedback

Feedback from superiors in cases of mishaps is provided more or less frequently and can be related to the person who makes the mistake or to the behavior causing it. Prior research uncovered the benefits of behavioral praise vs. person praise; however, surprisingly, little is known about the extent of person-focused negative feedback in organizational settings and its downstream productivity-related and emotional context. The present work demonstrates results across one descriptive and four experimental studies (Noverall=1,908) and provides evidence for the widespread presence (Study 1) and detrimental effects (Studies 2-5) of essentialist (e.g., “you are an inattentive person”) over behavior-focused (e.g., “you did not pay attention”) feedback leading to lower levels of work motivations, reduced organizational commitment, decreased seeking professional assistance, decreased perceived post-feedback performance, and lower willingness to correct the mistake, more intense rumination on the feedback, worsened relationship quality between the supervisor and the employee. Studies 3-5 demonstrated that feedback's performance and emotional consequences remain significant if the supervisor is competent or related to another common feedback content (forgetfulness). It appears that psychological benefits can be maximized if the behavior-focused feedback also refers to an external element (“you must have been tired”). Study 6 extended this research by examining how essentialist and behavior-focused feedback spread in spontaneous language use within organizational settings. In sum, this work suggests that behavior-focused feedback is not as common as it could be and can contribute to an organizational climate with numerous motivational and emotional benefits.