Feedback seeking in children and adolescents: associations with self-perceptions, attachment representations, and depression.
Because the feedback children and adolescents receive is important to their development, 2 experimental studies were designed to examine children's (M = 12 years) and adolescents' (M = 17 years) active selection of the quality of feedback they wish to receive. In both studies evidence emerged that participants' self-perceptions influence their feedback seeking. Participants with positive self-perceptions sought more positive feedback than participants with negative self-perceptions and sought more positive feedback than expected by chance. Participants with negative self-perceptions lacked this tendency to seek positive feedback and sometimes sought less positive feedback than expected by chance. As expected, depression and attachment-related measures were also associated with participants' feedback seeking. Contributions of feedback-seeking patterns to stability and change in children's and adolescents' development are discussed.
Cassidy
Jude
J
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, USA. jcassidy@psyc.umd.edu
Ziv
Yair
Y
Mehta
Tara G
TG
Feeney
Brooke C
BC
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires