Negative Feedback and Learning – A Multilevel Study on the Role of Directness and Distrust

Negative feedback, essential to employee learning and development, may at times also elicit reactions in the feedback receiver that impede employee growth. Although it has been proposed that the directness of the feedback may explain negative responses to feedback, research findings on the relationship between feedback directness and feedback reactions are inconsistent so far. We argue that distrust towards the feedback provider is a crucial moderator of the effects of feedback directness on destructive feedback reactions. In a field study we assessed teachers’ (N = 38) negative feedback directness and students’ (N = 312) distrust towards their teachers as well as students’ feedback reactions. Multilevel analysis showed, as expected, that only when students distrusted their teacher, the teachers’ negative feedback directness was positively associated with the experience of negative emotions, and negatively associated with perceived autonomy, motivation to improve and use of student positive feedback. Practical implications for the provision of negative feedback are discussed.