Tell Me What I Did Wrong: Experts Seek and Respond to Negative Feedback

A large proportion of marketing communication concerns feedback to consumers. This article explores what feedback people seek and respond to. We predict and find a shift from positive to negative feedback as people gain expertise. We doc-ument this shift in a variety of domains, including feedback on language acquisition, pursuit of environmental causes, and use of consumer products. Across these domains, novices sought and responded to positive feedback, and experts sought and responded to negative feedback. We examine a motivational account for the shift in feedback: positive feedback increased novices ’ commitment, and negative feedback increased experts ’ sense that they were making insufficient progress. Feedback is essential for individuals pursuing their goals.Without it, individuals would not know whether, what, and how much to invest in their goals (Ashford, Blatt, and