Originally published by Douglas Keene .
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The research we are covering today focuses on feedback that is subtly offensive and what observers make of it in comparison to constructive and destructive feedback. In case you are wondering just what “subtly offensive feedback” is, the researchers believe that subtly offensive feedback communicates that the recipient is “rather stupid” without saying so directly. Even when presented in a friendly fashion, say the researchers, the words hurt. Since prior research had neither focused on nor defined “subtly offensive” feedback, the researchers had to operationalize the ways in which they would offer the subtly offensive feedback to their participants. This study was seen as a pilot study upon which to develop future research.
The researchers defined three different types of subtly offensive feedback to test in the pilot study:
overkill (overly long and excessive dwelling on details);
exaggeration (explicitly exaggerating the significance of the mistakes); and
banality (declaring that a mistake is so easy to see no one should have missed it).
The researchers believe that feedback does not have to be presented in a destructive manner to be seen as negative. Their hypothesis, therefore, was that recipients would find the feedback less fair and acceptable than constructive feedback, and more fair and acceptable than destructive feedback. The hypothesis makes intuitive sense and you will likely not be surprised that they were correct.
132 Swiss undergraduate students (86 female, 46 male, average age 22.5 years, and participating in groups of 20 to 25 students) viewed a video of a man who was introduced as a professor and was allegedly giving feedback to a student about a course-related paper. Participants rated how fair they felt the feedback was after each (of 7 total) video.
As expected, participants rated the “subtly offensive” feedback as in between the fairness of constructive and destructive feedback. The researchers were surprised to find that the subtly offensive feedback conditions differed from each other. Participants saw overkill as most fair of the offensive conditions, then banality, and finally exaggeration. The researchers suggest that workplace supervisors can learn from their results that feedback can be negative and hurtful even if they are not insulting and rude. While this may seem an obvious conclusion, we would certainly agree.
From a litigation advocacy perspective, the awareness and sensibilities of jurors is a moving target. Not too long ago, it was sometimes an effective tactic to focus (and focus and focus) on whether an expert witness was being paid. That is no longer true, as the following experience connotes.
At the conclusion of a recent trial, as jurors were debriefed, they commented that they knew expert witnesses were paid and reported feeling that opposing counsel’s lengthy questions to experts about how much they were paid were insulting to their (i.e., the jurors’) intelligence. The attorneys did not mean to offend, but they had (in the words of today’s researchers) “subtly offended” their jurors.
Jurors have become increasingly sophisticated and aware of expert and fact witnesses and, like these jurors said in the post-verdict interviews: “We know experts get paid!”. This isn’t the only example of these faint lines between constructive, subtly offensive, and destructive statements. The research does a good job of establishing the distinction, but it doesn’t help at all in determining where those lines are– within a particular jury, subculture, region, nation, or anything else. Surely cultural values, differences in individual sensitivity, and life experiences all affect a person’s reaction to such things. If you wonder about that, consider how a hilarious joke that seemed innocent enough to you invariably strikes some listeners as offensive. Sometimes it is hard to tell. Play it safe. Stay away from jokes about anyone other than yourself, and carefully consider ways to be inviting- not critical- in when you present explanations and examples.
Krings, R., Jacobshagen, N., Elfering, A., & Semmer, N. (2014). Subtly offending feedback Journal of Applied Social Psychology DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12287
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