What Science Tells Us About How Employees Process Negative Feedback

Source: Zimmerman

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Does it sometimes feel that your employees do not listen to you, especially when you give negative feedback?

You’re not crazy, negative feedback goes in one ear and out the other

A paper from Florian Zimmermann sheds light on this often phenomenon:

• Zimmermann found that people remember positive feedback, almost 100% of the time, one month later

• However, the recall rate is only 35% when receiving negative feedback, using the same one-month timeframe

Source: Zimmerman and Mollick

Have you thought of attaching 💰with that feedback?

Here’s the interesting thing about Zimmermann’s study.

He found that recall accuracy increased to 80% when respondents were rewarded with 50 euros:

Source: Zimmerman

Key takeaway on negative feedback

As managers, it’s annoying to have to repeat ourselves.

However, memory and recall are notoriously fallible. One US Presidential candidate notoriously recalled that she “landed under sniper fire” when video footage showed that was far from the truth.

So be prepared to keep repeating yourself, especially when sharing negative feedback.

And who knows, you might want to try a 50 euro incentive too.

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