Pursuing the good, the known, or the unknown: Establishing feedback seeking motives and their antecedents

While previous research in organizational behavior has assumed that individuals seek feedback to gain objective, accurate information useful in improving their performance, the self-evaluation literature in social psychology suggests that feedback is also sought for purposes of verifying known performance (regardless of the valence of that belief), or for ego enhancement. Surveys were collected from 826 respondents across five organizations. In contrast to prior studies, this study examined job performance self-evaluation in a field setting using self reports of direct and indirect feedback seeking motives and behavior. Past studies have relied upon inferences of choice in lab settings, or have looked at role related feedback seeking in field settings. Factor analysis established the validity of conceptualizing feedback seeking behavior as being driven by these separate motives—termed self-assessment (SA), self-verification (SV), and self-enhancement (SE) respectively. Certainty of job performance was related to SV as predicted, but also to SA, which was opposite of predictions. Neither job tenure nor organization tenure were predictive of SA or SV. Canonical correlation analysis revealed relationships between individual goal orientations and feedback seeking motives. A learning orientation was related to SA, but opposite of predictions, also positively related to SE and SV. As hypothesized, impression “avoidance” was found to relate negatively to SA and impression “proving” was predictive of SA and SV. Together these findings suggest that the various feedback seeking motives may be stable over time. As hypothesized, SA was related to a direct inquiry style of feedback seeking and SE and SV were related to indirect inquiry and environmental monitoring styles of seeking, suggesting that clarity of interpretation is related to the reason feedback is sought. These results can help managers understand reasons their associates seek feedback. From understanding motives managers can better frame the way feedback is given in such a way that it is non-threatening and improves performance.