Premium
Feedback acceptance in developmental assessment centers: the role of feedback message, participant personality, and affective response to the feedback session
Author(s) -
Bell Suzanne T.,
Arthur Winfred
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/job.525
Subject(s) - psychology , extraversion and introversion , agreeableness , session (web analytics) , social psychology , personality , negative feedback , assessment center , positive feedback , mediation , affect (linguistics) , big five personality traits , applied psychology , communication , physics , quantum mechanics , voltage , world wide web , computer science , law , political science , electrical engineering , engineering
We investigated feedback acceptance by participants ( N = 141) in an operational developmental assessment center (AC). Consistent with predictions based on self‐enhancement theory and the Affective Infusion Model, results indicated that higher assessor ratings were associated with higher feedback acceptance, and this relationship was partially mediated by the participant's affective reaction to the feedback session. Participants' self‐ratings of their AC performance did not affect this relationship suggesting no support for our prediction based on self‐verification theory. We also investigated the role of participants' self‐ratings of agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability in feedback acceptance by testing specific moderated mediation hypotheses. Extraversion was related to feedback acceptance through the affective reaction to the feedback session. Agreeableness moderated the affective reaction to the feedback session and feedback acceptance relationship such that there was a strong relationship between affective reaction and feedback acceptance for highly agreeable participants, but no relationship for low agreeable individuals. For low agreeable individuals, there was a positive direct relationship between the assessor ratings and feedback acceptance which was not observed for highly agreeable individuals. The hypothesized role of emotional stability in predicting feedback acceptance was not supported. Implications for the delivery of feedback in developmental ACs are discussed in light of these findings. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.