Making negative feedback more acceptable: The effect of self-focused vs. task-focused feedback on employees’ feedback reactions

In this study, we examined the relationships between self-focused vs. task-focused feedback and feedback reactions, as well as the mediating role of perceived threat to self-worth and the moderating roles of guilt-proneness and shame-proneness. Our theoretical model was tested using 779 daily surveys collected from 212 full-time employees. Consistent with our theoretical arguments, results indicated that task-focused feedback leads to more positive feedback reactions because it poses less threat to self-worth, while self-focused feedback leads to more negative feedback reactions because feedback recipients perceive high levels of threat to self-worth. Furthermore, in an exploratory analysis, we found cross-level moderating effects of guilt-proneness and shame-proneness on the direct effect of self-focused vs. task-focused feedback on feedback reactions, such that guilt-proneness weakens the relationship between self-focused vs. task-focused feedback and feedback reactions, and shame-proneness strengthens the relationship between self-focused vs. task-focused feedback and feedback reactions. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings as well as future research directions.