Individual performance and self-evaluation in a simulated team

Abstract

Team feedback was simulated by telling each subject that he had a partner and that posttrial feedback indicated their team score relative to average tracking performance. Feedback actually indicated the subject's own tracking score relative to a criterion, the stringency of which was systematically manipulated to generate varying levels of simulated team feedback. Teammate replacement was simulated by instructions and, in some conditions, by an actual change in criterion stringency. The subjects accepted the credit for the good scores incurred by a lenient criterion but attributed the blame for the poor scores wrought by a stringent criterion to their contrived partners. Individual performance was retarded by poor scores, but only after teammate replacement had been simulated. This inhibitory effect was most pronounced when poor scores were given both before and after replacement instructions. The performance data were interpreted in terms of the motivating effect of self-evaluations and of the discouragement rendered by unfulfilled hopes of improved team output. The self-evaluation data were interpreted in terms of social comparison theory.