title: Emotional responses to changing feedback: is it better to have won and lost than never to have won at all?
abstract: Two experiments investigated how self-esteem guides people's emotional responses to changing evaluative feedback. In both experiments, participants received an initial evaluation (either positive or negative) followed by a second evaluation (either positive or negative). Emotional reactions to the second evaluation were then assessed. High self-esteem participants found feedback that was consistently negative to be most distressing, whereas low self-esteem participants were most disturbed by feedback that changed from positive to negative. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle 98195, USA. jdb@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: Jonathon D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Shelly D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Farnham
authors.forename: Kathleen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Cook
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007721:Knowledge of Results, Psychological; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D012928:Social Desirability; D014861:Washington