PERCEIVED ACCURACY OF FAVORABLE AND UNFAVORABLE PSYCHOLOGICAL FEEDBACK

Seventy-nine college students completed a personality inventory and th en received a bogus psychological profile that included a highly self- descriptive personality description and a diagnosis based on that desc ription. The personality description was identical for all participant s. The diagnostic information varied across two dimensions. Half the s ubjects received favorable diagnostic feedback indicating that they we re particularly resistant to future problems; the other half received unfavorable diagnostic feedback indicating that they were particularly prone to future problems. Half the subjects received information indi cating that they were resistant (or prone) to future medical problems; the other half were told that they were resistant (or prone) to futur e psychological problems. Subjects in a control condition received the personality description with no diagnostic information. Compared to t hose in favorable feedback conditions, subjects in unfavorable feedbac k conditions (a) rated both their diagnoses and the overall personalit y description as less accurate, (b) generated fewer reasons to support the accuracy of their diagnoses, and (c) generated more reasons to su pport the inaccuracy of their diagnosis. Favorable- and unfavorable-fe edback participants did not differ in the perceived accuracy of the in dividual statements making up the personality description, although un favorable-feedback subjects remembered fewer past behavioral instances consistent with the statements. Both theoretical and practical implic ations of the results are discussed.