A new study published in the Journal of Business and Psychology reveals that feedback providers are more likely to inflate performance evaluations when giving feedback to women compared to men. This pattern appears to stem from a social pressure to avoid appearing prejudiced toward women, which can lead to less critical feedback. But this practice, while seemingly protective, could limit women’s opportunities for growth and advancement.
In recent years, discussions around workplace equality and fairness have intensified, especially following movements like #MeToo. Employers and managers are increasingly aware of the need to treat women fairly in professional settings. However, this heightened awareness may be leading some feedback providers to overcorrect, offering women more positive feedback than is warranted by their actual performance.
Prior research has suggested that women may receive less critical and more positive feedback than men, but the reasons for this discrepancy were unclear. The researchers aimed to explore whether this pattern was linked to social pressures and the desire to avoid appearing biased or prejudiced.
“The project essentially arose out of a realization that emerged when I was collecting data for my dissertation that women might not get accurate performance feedback,” explained Leah D. Sheppard, an associate dean for equity & inclusion and associate professor of management at Washington State University.
“Specifically, I had found that people who criticized women’s work performance were perceived by others as more prejudiced (this data appears as a supplemental study in the paper). This idea was set aside for some time while I focused on other projects, but then it was picked back up, with a focus on determining whether women received inflated performance feedback and, if so, why.”
To investigate this, the researchers conducted two separate studies, in addition to the supplementary study.
In the first study, the researchers analyzed performance feedback from a large dataset of music reviews published by critics at Rolling Stone magazine. They gathered 315 album reviews, with 65% of those reviews focused on male musicians and 35% on female musicians. The feedback provided by the critics was analyzed by two independent coders who counted the proportion of words in each review that emphasized positive or negative aspects of the album. Additionally, the researchers documented the numerical rating (out of five stars) that accompanied each review.
By comparing the feedback given to male and female musicians, the researchers sought to determine if the positive feedback was inflated for women beyond what their album rating would suggest. The results revealed that female musicians received a higher proportion of positive feedback (10% more) than male musicians, even after controlling for the overall star rating of their albums. This finding supported the hypothesis that women tend to receive more inflated positive feedback compared to men, suggesting that bias may play a role in how feedback is delivered based on gender.
To better assess the reasons behind this inflation and to test for causality, the researchers conducted a second study using an experimental design. Participants were recruited online, with a final sample of 486 participants. These participants were from a diverse demographic background in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity, with 44% of them being women, 53% men, and the remaining identifying as non-binary.
The participants were asked to complete a two-part task. In the first part, they were presented with a description of a hypothetical employee’s work performance, which was identical across participants and contained no reference to the employee’s gender. They were then asked to select the most honest feedback from six options, ranging from very negative (the most honest) to very positive (the least honest). In addition to gathering feedback preferences, the researchers also measured participants’ internal and external motivations to avoid showing prejudice towards women.
A week later, the participants returned for the second part of the study. This time, they were randomly assigned to deliver feedback to either a male or female employee. The description of the employee’s work performance remained the same, but the employee’s gender was indicated by either a male or female name. Participants again selected a feedback option from the same set of six. The key measure in this phase was the difference between the feedback provided in the gender-neutral context of Part 1 and the gender-specific context of Part 2.
The results showed that participants were more likely to inflate their feedback when evaluating a female employee compared to a male employee, even though the performance description was the same. Furthermore, those who were more externally motivated to avoid showing prejudice were also more likely to express protective feelings towards female employees, which led them to provide inflated, less critical feedback. These findings suggest that social pressure to avoid appearing prejudiced can cause feedback providers to overcompensate, resulting in overly positive feedback for women, which could ultimately limit their development.
Lastly, in the supplementary study, the researchers explored the social perception of feedback in a scenario where a manager delivered critical feedback to an employee. The study used a sample of participants who were presented with identical feedback scenarios, but the gender of both the feedback provider and the recipient was manipulated. After reading the scenario, participants were asked to explain why they believed the manager gave the critical feedback. The researchers then categorized the explanations to see whether participants attributed the feedback to the employee’s poor performance or to the manager’s personal prejudice.
The results showed that participants were more likely to attribute critical feedback to personal prejudice when the recipient was a woman. Furthermore, managers delivering critical feedback to a female employee were perceived as less communal—less warm and supportive—than those giving similar feedback to a male employee. This perception highlights the social pressures that feedback providers face when delivering negative feedback to women. These pressures likely contribute to the tendency to inflate feedback, as managers may fear being seen as biased or prejudiced.
“The key takeaway is that when individuals feel pressure to avoid prejudiced behavior, they might overcorrect and exhibit attitudes and behavior that (appears to) unduly favor the individual towards whom they fear expressing prejudice,” Sheppard told PsyPost. “In the performance feedback context, however, unduly favoring someone is, paradoxically, likely to harm them in the long term. That is, women who receive inflated performance feedback might find their career advancement stalled because they don’t have accurate information about what they need to improve.”
The study, “Paternalism in the Performance Context: Evaluators Who Feel Social Pressure to Avoid Exhibiting Prejudice Deliver More Inflated Performance Feedback to Women,” was authored by Leah D. Sheppard, Tiffany M. Trzebiatowski, and Joshua J. Prasad.
