Feedback and Feedback Inconsistency as Sources of Strain and Self-Evaluation

Six hundred and forty police officers participated in a survey of job performance feedback. Results were interpreted in terms of a hierarchical view of feedback, in which task feedback is relied upon most heavily for evaluating one's own performance, but feedback from the organization is used to adjust the way information from the task is used. Consistent with these expectations, self-evaluations were most closely associated with task feedback. Strain varied as a function of both (a) inconsistency between organization and task feedback, and (b) affective relevance of feedback from others.