Differential Effects of Feedback as a Function of Task Distribution in Teams

Abstract

Variables affecting the outcome of cooperative team efforts have garnered increased research attention in recent years. Of these variables, feedback may have one of the greatest effects. Questions, however, remain about what kind of feedback to give and to whom. Previous research has indicated that team members maximize those tasks for which they are given feedback. These gains appear to occur at the expense of other tasks for which no feedback is provided and sometimes result in reduced overall team performance. The current experiment investigated the differential effects of feedback in triads with different task distributions. The results of the study indicated that feedback given to team members who had to complete two tasks simultaneously resulted in tradeoffs: Team members optimized that task for which they received feedback, sometimes at the expense of the competing task. When the team members receiving feedback had no competing tasks, these tradeoffs did not occur. In contrast, feedback in this setup appeared to potentially improve performance not only on the task for which feedback was given, but on the competing task as well. A possible explanation is that in these cases, feedback reduced the communication and coordination demands and freed team resources that could be used to improve other tasks.