Achievement 193with her boyfriend, and he was befuddled. He
could not understand why what I had said had
made any difference to her.
Women may be more influenced than
men by the feedback they receive from oth-
ers about their performance. This could stem
from a lack of self-confidence on the part of
women, or it could stem from an openness to
others’ opinions; the sex difference can eas-
ily be cast in a negative or positive light. In
either case, when women are told they have
performed poorly or lack ability, they may be
more likely than men to take the feedback to
heart. Grades in math are more strongly cor-
related with women’s than men’s perceived
competence in math (Correll, 2001), suggest-
ing that others’ opinions have a stronger influ-
ence on women than men. Women’s thoughts
about themselves, including beliefs about
their abilities, are more influenced by other
people’s appraisals of their abilities compared
to men. The direction of the influence could
be positive or negative, depending on whether
the feedback is positive or negative.
Females’ greater responsiveness to
feedback was shown in a study in which col-
lege students were asked to give a speech to
a group of three other students who were
confederates of the experimenter (Roberts &
Nolen-Hoeksema, 1994). One of the confed-
erates provided positive feedback, negative
feedback, or gave no feedback. Prior to the
feedback, women reported higher perfor-
mance expectancies compared to men, pos-
sibly because giving a speech is considered
to be a more feminine task. As shown in
Figure 6.5, women’s evaluations of their
speech were more affected by the feedback
than those of men. Women’s evaluations of
their speech became more positive in the pos-
itive feedback condition and more negative
in the negative feedback condition, whereas
men’s evaluations were less affected by theoutperformed another person, believing that others’
self-esteem would be threatened by such displays.
■ To the extent that a sex difference in self-confidence
exists, it appears to be a combination of women being
underconfident and men being overconfident.Response to Evaluative Feedback
I began college with a major in journalism.
I took some psychology classes along the
way. Two things happened to make me
switch from journalism to psychology: First,
I discovered all my journalism assignments—
news stories, feature stories, editorials, and
investigations—were on psychological top-
ics; second, not one of my journalism pro-
fessors took me aside and told me I was a
gifted writer. Receiving A’s on papers was not
enough to make me think I could be a suc-
cessful journalist; I was waiting for the tap
on my shoulder. Ironically, after I switched
my major to psychology in my junior year, a
journalism professor did take me aside and
told me what I had wanted to hear. By then
it was too late. I had already developed a pas-
sion for psychology.
While teaching at Carnegie Mellon, a
similar experience occurred, but this time I
was the one tapping someone else’s shoulder.
I had taken aside an undergraduate who was
torn between art and psychology, and within
psychology, torn between clinical work and
research. I told her I thought she had all the
skills needed to make a fine researcher: clear
conceptual thinking, a strong methodological
knowledge base, and creativity in experimental
design. I did not think twice about this conver-
sation until she told me the following semester
that it had influenced her to switch her focus
to research. The interesting part of this story—
and here is where it becomes relevant to the
chapter—is that she shared the experienceM06_HELG0185_04_SE_C06.indd 193 6/21/11 8:10 AM