Bearing bad news: Reactions to negative performance feedback

Knowledge of results plays a major role in almost all learning and motivati onal theories of task performance. Central to all these is the belief that it is necessary to feed back to employees information about the degree to w hich they have or have not met performance standards. In particular, inform ation about performance that falls short of the standard (typically termed negative feedback) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for correcti ve action. However, reactions to negative feedback frequently do not produc e the desired effect of improving performance even in cases where the perso n is capable of better performance. This article presents a model of negati ve feedback incorporating situational and individual characteristics that a ppear to impact motivation to respond to negative feedback.