Why Does Positive Feedback Undermine Performance? Introducing the Decoupling Hypothesis

Positive feedback is often given in an attempt to boost people’s performance. In many cases, however, positive feedback undermines performance. Why? A common explanation is recipients interpret positive feedback as evidence that they are making more progress toward their goal than expected, leading them to coast. Here, we propose an alternative explanation: Receiving positive feedback is a pleasurable experience that decouples the grip of attention from the task, which undermines performance. If so, performance drops after positive feedback could be prevented by delaying the positive feedback until individuals have started preparing for their next task. Doing so may even transform the positive feedback into a motivational reward that allows individuals to utilize the rewarding experience of receiving positive feedback to energize their on-task behavior, thereby improving performance. We tested the decoupling hypothesis in three well-powered experiments (total N = 395), including a preregistered replication. Across experiments, we found that when positive feedback was delivered before participants started preparing for their next task, it impaired subsequent performance. Supporting the decoupling hypothesis, when positive feedback was delivered after participants started preparing for their next task, it did not impair subsequent performance; in fact, it boosted performance. These findings shed new light on the cognitive-affective mechanisms that underlie performance drops after positive feedback and identify unique ways to alleviate them. Also, the findings show that individuals do not invariably coast after positive feedback. This has broad implications for motivation theory and feedback interventions.