Investigating a Growth Frame for Delivering Effective Failure Feedback

Abstract

Effective feedback is vital for individuals to optimize goal pursuit, providing direction for where and how to invest limited resources. In particular, failure feedback can be critical for successful goal pursuit (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Vancouver et al., 2010). However, despite considerable evidence that failure feedback is useful, and despite people indicating that they desire such feedback (Abi-Esber et al., 2022; Zenger & Folkman, 2014), research also suggests that it can be incredibly difficult to receive. This thesis extends research suggesting that an individual’s mindset influences their response to failure (Dweck, 2006; Dweck & Master, 2008) to test a growth frame that can be incorporated into feedback messages to recontextualize failure as a valuable opportunity for growth. Three studies (N = 466) investigated whether participants experienced greater motivation, goal commitment, self-efficacy, and state growth mindset after receiving success and failure feedback with a growth frame versus without a frame (Studies 1 and 3) or with a general positive frame (Study 2). Overall, the results provide preliminary evidence that receiving feedback with a growth frame effectively reduces the emotional and motivational consequences of experiencing failure. By exploring the effectiveness of a growth frame for failure feedback, this research offers new insights into the foundations of effective failure feedback.