Source: Demi Fan 1/Pixabay

Published in the August issue Current opinion in psychology, a paper by Fram et al.suggesting that feedback—means “information provided to the recipient about behavior, performance, or understanding”—to be effective, the person receiving the advice must accept the information and discern its truth.

This article discusses barriers to both feedback receptivity and truth discernment. These are described below.

Barriers to acceptance

threat to ego

If the feedback is interpreted as Intimidation For a sense of self, it can lead to feelings of shame and humiliation, defensiveness, and even aggressive behavior. In other words, it’s more about your character (e.g. values, intelligence, beauty) rather than your behavior (e.g. not speaking up in meetings).

Feedback can be rejected if it doesn’t align with your sense of self, whether it’s advice that’s too critical for someone who is overconfident or too positive for someone with a negative self-view.

Also, people with low self-esteem or strong rejection tend to become defensive when receiving negative feedback.

Do not trust feedback or feedback providers

Feedback is more likely to be rejected if: reliability The feedback provider (knowledge, expertise, etc.) is questionable. For example, if a teacher exaggerates subject proficiency, the teacher’s suggestions are likely to be ignored.

or if the advisor does not be very careful for listeners.

The opposite is also true. In other words, your advisor may be too kind and compassionate to be brutally honest, fearing that the advice you are given is inaccurate.

Other barriers include motivation (such as financial incentives) and racial and gender dynamics (such as men giving women positive feedback to avoid appearing sexist).

doubt the ability or willingness of feedback recipients to change

Some barriers are related to the beliefs of both the feedback provider and recipient about the feedback of the recipient. Willingness and ability to change.

To explain, conduct People who believe they can’t change are less likely to ask for advice. And teachers who believe that certain students are reluctant to change can directly or indirectly pass on these low expectations to their students, who may discourage improvement.

Barriers to the truth

I don’t understand your feedback

If the feedback itself is vague, abstract, complex, without examples, and not relevant to the goals of the feedback recipient, accepting feedback alone is not enough to make a change.

In addition, sometimes there is too much or too little feedback. Alternatively, providing negative feedback to recipients who do not have sufficient emotion regulation skills to process criticism or are from cultures where feedback is provided in more indirect ways. Both cases result in defensiveness and other emotional responses that can prevent us from making sense of the feedback.

Difficulty judging the authenticity of feedback

Many people give more positive feedback than they should because giving critical feedback can have negative consequences. This makes it difficult for recipients to determine the truth of the feedback and use this information to improve.

In addition, the authors argue that feedback providers who do not “contextualize the content or tone of their feedback” should “not allow feedback recipients to determine whether the feedback is accurate or whether it is a by-product of the feedback provider’s feedback.” can be difficult to determine,” he said. A persistent communication style, behavioral pattern, or personality. ”

For example, people are more likely to ignore the opinions of those who are (or seem to be) pessimists.

Validating advice given to people belonging to specific groups (e.g., women, blacks, other ethnic minorities) that have been accused of having gender- and race-related barriers to feedback receptivity There are also obstacles. For example, a woman who is told she has done a “great job” on a leadership task may doubt the veracity of the feedback and ignore it.

Feedback recipients’ emotions, motivations, and goals can also bias the interpretation of feedback. For example, in a romantic relationship, a person who wants to feel close to their partner may see their partner as more supportive than they actually are and feel motivated to believe in the veracity of the positive feedback they provide. I have.

Source: Arash Emmazadeh (adapted from Fulham et al., 2022)

How to give feedback

The feedback-providing approach aims to increase the receptivity and credibility of the message.

The familiar sandwich approach Feedback – The “meat” of negative feedback sandwiched between two or more positive comments, but it doesn’t always work. why?

The goal of the sandwich method is to increase the receptivity of feedback by reducing the threat to the recipient’s self-consciousness, but it also leaves the recipient confused about what the actual feedback is or doubts the credibility of the positive comments. This is because there is a possibility that

In general, what No The work, according to the authors, is a message “characterized by brutal honesty, offensive aggression, manipulative dishonesty, devastating empathy, or false encouragement,” and “receptiveness of feedback and discernment of truth.” because it tends to cause problems for

what do The job is to maximize honesty and compassion. This means providing feedback that is true and promotes personal well-being in the long term. This approach usually outperforms the other methods. Brutal Honesty (High Honesty, Low Mercy), Avoidance (Low Honesty, Low Mercy), False Hope (High Mercy, Low Honesty).

Of course, some discomfort may be necessary, but only if it has long-term benefits. is worth nothing.

Finally, it is important to consider the removal of barriers as the responsibility of the feedback giver and receiver. share.