Reflections on the Looking Glass: A Review of Research on Feedback-Seeking Behavior in Organizations – Ashford et al. - 2003 - Article

What are the five key aspects of feedback seeking?

Research has identified the following key aspects of feedback seeking:

• Frequency and how often individuals seek feedback
• Method. Methods by which people may seek feedback are inquiry (explicit verbal requests for feedback), monitoring (observing aspects of the environment, particularly other people, that provides indications of how one is doing), and indirect inquiry (using indirect questions and third parties to seek information and testing limits to prompt spontaneous feedback from others). 
• Timing of feedback seeking, for example directly after a performance or after a delay. 
• Target of feedback seeking. This choice may involve a consideration of the role relation of the target to a performer, or the target’s mood. 
• Topic

What are the three motives that underlie feedback seeking?

The three motives underlying feedback seeking are:

• The instrumental motive to achieve a goal or perform well
• The ego-based motive to defend or enhance one’s ego
• The image-based motive to protect or enhance the impressions that others hold of one

The interplay among these three motives can influence decisions to either seek or avoid feedback information. 

What is the instrumental motive of feedback seeking?

Instrumental people seek feedback because it has informational value that helps them meet their goals and regulate their behavior. This motive becomes more apparent in certain situations and as the perceived value of feedback increases, individuals seek it more frequently. For example, especially in an organizational setting the process of feedback is important. It helps employees to understand the organization and improve their performance. Even more so when someone starts a new job, possibly a difficult job, as feedback seeking also reduces uncertainty. 

How does the instrumental motive influence the key aspects of feedback seeking?

The instrumental motive increases the frequency of feedback seeking. With regards to the method of feedback seeking, the results are mixed. In some studies both monitoring and inquiry were increased, but in other studies only either one. The instrumental motive influences from whom people seek feedback and the performers prefer feedback from a credible source with a high instrumental value of the feedback. 

What is the ego-based motive of feedback seeking?

A major factor in determining feedback seeking behavior is the need for self-protection. People are motivated to defend and protect their egos. They prefer favorable information about them that helps them maintain a positive self-view. It causes people to use cognitive mechanisms to avoid or change information that hurts their self-image, as especially information about the self, such as feedback, is more emotionally charged. 

What paradox is found in the relationship between self-esteem and feedback seeking?

Research has shown mixed results with regards to the relationship between self-esteem and feedback seeking. Some propose that people with high self-esteem are more capable of dealing with negative feedback and that people with low self-esteem have a higher need to protect their egos and prefer to avoid feedback. However, self-verification research showed that people seek feedback that is consistent with their self-views. In that case, people with low self-esteem actively seek negative feedback to verify their negative self-appraisal.

How does the ego-based motive influence the key aspects of feedback seeking?

The potential that feedback has for injury of the self-view causes people to avoid or discount feedback and thus influences the frequency of feedback seeking. It also influences who they seek feedback from and may avoid people who they think will give them negative feedback if they are not emotionally capable of handling the feedback. With regards to the method used, people who expect the feedback to be negative are more likely to monitor for feedback than to use an active inquiry strategy. 

What is the image-based motive of feedback seeking?

The image-based motive involves protecting or enhancing the impressions that others hold of someone. There are two ways that image may be hurt or enhanced by feedback seeking. The first is in how the source may evaluate the act of the feedback seeking of the performer. The second is the source´s actual verbalization of the feedback. This motive especially influences public feedback seeking as image costs could be higher when feedback is sought in public. In a public context, people must weigh the instrumental or ego benefits of feedback against potential image costs. On the other hand, people can also publicly seek feedback to enhance their image. This often shows when feedback is being sought that has no informational value (for example when a favorable performance review has already been done). 

How does the image-based motive influence the key aspects of feedback seeking?

When performers perceive that seeking feedback could damage their image, for example because it makes them look uncertain, incompetent, or insecure, they may change their method from inquiry to monitoring. Research has also confirmed that when people experience stereotype threat, they tend to increase the frequency of their feedback monitoring. Finally, other research has shown that newcomers tend to seek more feedback if it increases their opportunity to be in contact with potential targets. 

What is the feedback seeking context? 

Context has been thought of as the feedback environment which is made up of the various feedback sources. There are many variables in the context that influence the different motives, such as uncertainty, the degree of organizational centralization, the degree of autonomy, and the availability of feedback sources. A supportive context with supportive feedback and positive peer relations may increase feedback seeking. A good relationship with the supervisor that reduces fears of potential image costs could also increase feedback seeking. In this way, there are many different variables in the context that influence the motives for and the key aspects of feedback seeking. 

What are the outcomes of feedback seeking?

It is both conceptually and empirically difficult to assess the outcomes of feedback seeking, as it needs to answer the question if feedback seeking helps a performer to obtain an accurate self-view, meet instrumental goals, and/or maintain a positive image. The direct outcomes of feedback seeking need to be examined as well at the impact of the feedback seeking behavior. For example, research has shown that negative feedback seeking is not necessarily bad for one´s image and that there are positive image consequences of feedback seeking. Negative feedback seeking has shown to be associated with higher effectiveness ratings by supervisors, and the seekers were judged to be more concerned, effective, and interested than non-seekers. 

Does feedback serve instrumental goals?

With regards to the instrumental motive, the goal would be to obtain accurate data. Evidence suggests a link between feedback seeking and the accuracy of the information received, namely that people are reluctant to give feedback, especially negative feedback. Other studies suggest that whether seeking feedback serves instrumental goals depends on the nature of the feedback and characteristics of the seeker, including what the seeker does with the feedback information. Future research needs to assess the mediating mechanisms through which feedback influences the attainment of instrumental goals such as performance, one´s advancement potential, job satisfaction, and adaptation. 

What should future feedback seeking research focus on?

The authors mention the following topics as interesting for further research:

• Cognitive processes that underlie feedback seeking behavior. There is not yet a full understanding of how individuals process and integrate the feedback they receive. Two modes of operation are distinguished. Conscious processing involves awareness and effort and can be controlled with conscious effort to achieve purposes and goals. Automatic processing is effortless and does not require conscious guidance and allows freeing up the limited cognitive and attentional capacities.Whether conscious or automatic processes dominate depends on whether a goal is salient and on the performance environment. 
• Feedback seeking tendencies of leaders. The CEO disease refers to people's fear of giving honest appraisals to those who are above them. Theories suggest that this shortage of feedback should increase the instrumental motive to seek it, the reality is that leaders tend to be intolerant of feedback and don't actively seek it. Many leaders were raised according to the heroic model which depicts leaders as regulating others and confronting enemies. This mindset is inconsistent with feedback seeking, which requires leaders to slow down and seek input. Also, according to the Theory X assumption, in which leaders assume that people are self-interested and untrustworthy, leaders are discouraged from seeking feedback from their employees. 
• Domain contingency. A distinction is made between global- and domain-specific feelings of self-worth. Not all domain-specific self-evaluations are relevant for global self-worth. Only evaluations in contingent domains (performance domains in which individuals measure their self-esteem) are relevant for self-worth. In these domains, self-esteem is fragile and people tend to avoid feedback when they expect it to be negative and seek it when they expect it to be positive. 
• Bringing in a cross-cultural perspective. Future research should examine how feedback seeking is different in other cultures (other than the USA), and also how feedback seeking processes take place between two people from different cultures in the same organization. 

What is goal orientation?

There are two classes of underlying goals that a person can pursue, namely: 

• A learning goal orientation to develop competence by acquiring new skills and mastering new situations. It is associated with an incremental implicit theory. Ability is viewed as a malleable attribute that can be developed with effort and persistence. Effort is seen as the primary determinant of success. Feedback is viewed as information on how to improve. 
• A performance-goal orientation to demonstrate competence and validate worth by seeking favorable judgments and avoiding negative judgments about one´s competence. It is associated with an entity implicit theory. Ability is viewed as a fixed, innate attribute that is difficult to develop. Ability is seen as the primary determinant of success. Feedback is viewed as an evaluation of aspects of the self. 

How does one’s goal orientation influence feedback seeking?

Learning goal-oriented people will seek negative feedback for its contribution to their learning goals. Their instrumental motive to seek feedback is enhanced because they have a desire to develop, focus on the diagnostic value of feedback, and believe that ability can be developed. Performance-goal oriented people view ability as a fixed attribute and so the instrumental motive to seek feedback is reduced. They view potential negative feedback as an indictment about their ability. These concerns increase the cost of ego and image motives and thus reduce feedback seeking. 

How is cultural variability related to feedback seeking?

High status-identity cultures (where status is gained by birthright or gender) there is more distance between employees and leaders. It requires more effort to obtain feedback and the possible costs of ego and image are higher. People in holistic cultures care about relationships and avoid embarrassment. In these cultures there is less inquiry and more monitoring. In collectivist cultures, individuals tend to seek more feedback about the group as a whole than individuals and don't often seek via inquiry, to avoid embarrassment. In collectivist cultures there is also a stronger desire for feedback on failures, whereas in individualistic cultures there is a stronger desire for feedback on successes. This is explained by the theory that in individualistic cultures the self is defined as a set of fixed inner attributes and a strong motive to see oneself in a positive light, leading to a desire of self-enhancement. In collective cultures the self is seen as mutable, leading to an emphasis on efforts toward meeting obligations, leading to a desire of self-improvement.