The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

194 Chapter 6

in responsiveness to feedback in a real-world

setting (Johnson & Helgeson, 2002). We

measured the self-esteem of bank employees

before and after they met with their supervi-

sor for their annual performance evaluation.

As shown in Figure 6.6, women’s self-esteem

improved slightly after receiving a positive

evaluation and declined substantially after

receiving a negative evaluation, whereas men’s

self-esteem was largely unaffected by the na-

ture of the feedback. Women also took the

evaluation process more seriously, regarded

the feedback as more accurate, and viewed

their supervisors as credible sources. Men

who received negative feedback appeared

to prepare themselves psychologically for

the upcoming evaluation by derogating the

source of the feedback (“My supervisor isn’t

that smart”) and the feedback system (“The

evaluation process is not fair”). In general, the

results of this study supported the laboratory

findings.

feedback. Women were not more responsive

to the feedback because they were less confi-

dent than men. Recall that women had higher

initial expectancies than men. Women also

were not more responsive to the feedback be-

cause they wanted to appear agreeable to the

confederates; the evaluations were confiden-

tial. However, women indicated that the feed-

back was more accurate than men did. Thus

the authors concluded that women are more

responsive to feedback than men because

they find the feedback to be more informative

about their abilities.

One concern about these kinds of stud-

ies is that they are conducted with college

students, and the feedback is given by peers

rather than authority figures. We would ex-

pect both women and men to be more re-

sponsive to feedback from those judged to be

more knowledgeable. An undergraduate and

I tested whether there were sex differences

FIGURE 6.5 Effect of feedback on evaluation.

Women evaluated their speech as more positive

after receiving positive feedback and more nega-

tive after receiving negative feedback. Men’s eval-

uations of their speech were relatively unaffected

by the nature of the feedback they received.

Source: Adapted from Roberts and Nolen-

Hoeksema (1994, Study 2).

Positive

Feedback

–2

–1.5

–1

Changes in Evaluation

–0.5

1

No

Feedback

Effect of Feedback on Evaluation

Negative

Feedback

0

0.5

Males

Females

FIGURE 6.6 Women’s self-esteem slightly im-

proved after receiving a positive evaluation from

their supervisor, and women’s self-esteem drasti-

cally decreased after receiving a negative evalu-

ation. Men’s self-esteem was unaffected by the

feedback they received from their supervisor.

Source: Adapted from Johnson and Helgeson

(2002).

5.4

5.6

5.8

6

6.2

6.4

6.6

Self-Esteem

Female Positive

Male Positive

Male Negative

Female Negative

Before Feedback After Feedback

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