Abstract
There is evidence that the social groups to which people belong can be a source of resilience in challenging times. In this paper, we examine whether social group memberships can also increase resilience in the face of negative performance feedback by encouraging task persistence. In two experiments (Ns = 63, 61) participants completed three rounds of a performance task. In the experimental conditions (but not the control) participants were first asked to think about, and consider the importance of, either one or five important social groups of which they were members. In both experiments, participants who reflected on important social groups were more likely to persist in practicing the task after negative performance feedback than those in the control condition. In Experiment 2 only, there was also evidence of performance improvement after negative feedback for participants in experimental but not control conditions. There was no evidence that self-reported confidence, motivation, or self-efficacy accounted for the observed effects. Overall, this is the first study to provide evidence that salient group memberships can increase resilience in a sensorimotor task. Significantly, the findings suggest that groups are not just a context but also a critical psychological resource for performance following failure feedback.
Highlights
As Thomas Edison so keenly observed, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” it is often small margins that separate failure from success
We examine whether social group memberships can increase resilience in the face of negative performance feedback by encouraging task persistence
The findings reviewed above suggest that group memberships can play an important role in people’s resilience in the face of negative performance feedback
Summary
As Thomas Edison so keenly observed, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” it is often small margins that separate failure from success. Exploration of individual qualities and character has underpinned much of the work in this area, recent research suggests that social factors may have an important role to play. Notable among these social factors are people’s group memberships, which are known to act as a psychological resource in times of stress (Correll and Park, 2005; Iyer et al, 2009; Jones and Jetten, 2011; Steffens et al, 2016). We explore the possibility that people’s membership of groups can help them increase their resilience in the face of negative performance feedback, and that, all else being equal, social group memberships are a precursor to performance success
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