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Daily Feedback Suspicion and Ability-Uncertainty among Junior Researchers in Competitive Work Climates in STEM

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Title: Daily Feedback Suspicion and Ability-Uncertainty among Junior Researchers in Competitive Work Climates in STEM
Language: English
Authors: Iris Meinderts (ORCID 0000-0001-8190-1035), Jenny Veldman (ORCID 0000-0003-1560-4512), Colette Van Laar (ORCID 0000-0002-8113-1242)
Source: Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal. 2024 27(4):1-25.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 25
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Researchers, Student Research, College Students, Goal Orientation, Intergroup Relations, Competition, Feedback (Response), Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Self Esteem, Performance Based Assessment, STEM Education, Interpersonal Communication, Student Motivation, Work Environment
DOI: 10.1007/s11218-024-09898-z
ISSN: 1381-2890
1573-1928
Abstract: Having a clear and stable sense of how one performs in a field is a key contributor to goal pursuit. Performance feedback is often considered a crucial resource for developing this clear and stable self-knowledge but may be less optimally integrated when feedback is considered inaccurate or dishonest. The current paper investigates how such feedback perceptions may limit the development of people's ability self-concept, and how workplace contexts can restrict communication. A 2-week daily diary study among 197 junior researchers working in STEM-fields (N = 1,353 data points) showed that those in more competitive (vs. more collaborative) work environments overall perceived feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest (but not as more positively inflated). These results did not differ for men and women, showing that both face negative consequences of working in a more competitive context in terms of their ability to get high-quality feedback. On the daily level, results showed that days on which people received more inaccurate and dishonest (but not positively inflated) feedback were also days on which they reported higher imposter feelings, and lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability. In turn, days on which people felt more like an imposter and reported lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability, were also days on which motivation was lower. Ability self-esteem and self-concept clarity (but not imposter feelings and self-concept stability) were also related to lower daily risk-taking tendencies. Together, these results show that an important contextual factor--the perceived competitiveness of one's work environment--influences feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty, with consequences for the ability to develop a clear, stable and certain ability self-concept.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1439589
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0179690074;luo01aug.24;2024Sep19.05:40;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0179690074-1">Daily feedback suspicion and ability-uncertainty among junior researchers in competitive work climates in STEM </title> <p>Having a clear and stable sense of how one performs in a field is a key contributor to goal pursuit. Performance feedback is often considered a crucial resource for developing this clear and stable self-knowledge but may be less optimally integrated when feedback is considered inaccurate or dishonest. The current paper investigates how such feedback perceptions may limit the development of people's ability self-concept, and how workplace contexts can restrict communication. A 2-week daily diary study among 197 junior researchers working in STEM-fields (N = 1,353 data points) showed that those in more competitive (vs. more collaborative) work environments overall perceived feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest (but not as more positively inflated). These results did not differ for men and women, showing that both face negative consequences of working in a more competitive context in terms of their ability to get high-quality feedback. On the daily level, results showed that days on which people received more inaccurate and dishonest (but not positively inflated) feedback were also days on which they reported higher imposter feelings, and lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability. In turn, days on which people felt more like an imposter and reported lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability, were also days on which motivation was lower. Ability self-esteem and self-concept clarity (but not imposter feelings and self-concept stability) were also related to lower daily risk-taking tendencies. Together, these results show that an important contextual factor– the perceived competitiveness of one's work environment - influences feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty, with consequences for the ability to develop a clear, stable and certain ability self-concept.</p> <p>Keywords: Competitive work climate; Feedback inaccuracy; Feedback dishonesty; STEM-fields; Daily diary method</p> <p>Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-024-09898-z.</p> <p>Did you ever receive feedback on your work, only to find yourself questioning whether that feedback was truly honest, or an accurate evaluation of your abilities? Perhaps you felt that a compliment you received was a bit overstated, that somebody held back on sharing their criticism, or that the feedback was biased and thus not an accurate reflection of your capabilities or work. These experiences are problematic because feedback is of key importance. Feedback can be exchanged formally (e.g., during official performance appraisals), or more informally (e.g., during everyday work interactions). Feedback contains information about how one's performance is evaluated by others, helps people identify their strengths and weaknesses in a field, and as such is a key contributor to goal pursuit (Ashford, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref1">3</reflink>]; Kluger & DeNisi, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref2">57</reflink>]; Locke & Latham, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref3">67</reflink>]). Whether people can make effective use of feedback depends on its perceived reliability and trustworthiness. A large global report on performance management disclosed that 33% of people felt they lacked the opportunity to have a candid dialogue about how they are performing at work (Abi-Esber et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref4">1</reflink>]; Mercer, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref5">73</reflink>]). This suggests that people desire honest and critical feedback, but may not always receive it, making it more difficult to get a clear and consistent sense of one's abilities in an organization or field (Fulham et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref6">38</reflink>]). However, whereas ample scholarly attention has been paid to best practices for feedback giving (Wisniewski et al., [<reflink idref="bib96" id="ref7">96</reflink>]), less attention has been paid to consequences of suboptimal feedback; what work contexts may impair optimal feedback exchange; and how this influences people's daily ability self-views. The present research aims to fill this gap by looking at daily perceptions of feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty within more competitive (vs. collaborative) work climates, and how this allows or prevents coming to clear, stable, and certain ability self-perceptions.</p> <p>Suboptimal feedback is common and there are many reasons why feedback providers may fail to give accurate or honest feedback. First of all, forming a proper assessment of somebody can be a time-consuming activity, which may deter especially those who are under time-constraints to offer concrete and accurate feedback. Indeed, people are believed to be "motivated tacticians", with specific goals, and motivated to take short-cuts to spare resources of time and energy (Fiske & Taylor, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref8">37</reflink>]; Heider, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref9">48</reflink>]; Kahneman, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref10">53</reflink>]). Those occupying high-power positions– who also tend to do more of the evaluating (Bear et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref11">10</reflink>])– might in particular fall prey to making swift judgments of their subordinates under such resource- and time-constraints (Fiske, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref12">36</reflink>]; Goodwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref13">40</reflink>]; Keltner et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref14">54</reflink>]). People also have been shown to more easily fall back on other heuristics, such as social stereotyping, when time and energy is scarce (Fiske, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref15">36</reflink>]; Macrae et al., [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref16">70</reflink>]). Not only leaders but also those with similar status - such as fellow colleagues - may provide inaccurate feedback at times, for example when they lack the expertise that is needed to make a fully informed judgment in the first place (Vorauer, [<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref17">94</reflink>]). Those on the receiving end of the feedback might pick up on cues of potential bias or the constraints under which a judgment had to be formed. This may induce doubt as to whether what is being said aligns with one's actual skill-level (Crocker et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref18">29</reflink>]; Crocker & Major, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref19">27</reflink>]; Yeager et al., [<reflink idref="bib97" id="ref20">97</reflink>]), leading to perceived inaccuracy of the feedback. Secondly, people may hold back on their opinions and criticism or "sugarcoat" a message, leading to a perception of feedback dishonesty. People are at times motivated to exaggerate, emphasize the positive, or tell white lies so as not to cause discomfort to others or themselves. Most societies have a strong anti-negativity norm, so the need to be honest by providing constructive criticism may at times feel at odds with the need to be polite and not cause harm (Bergsieker et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref21">13</reflink>]; Lupoli et al., [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref22">69</reflink>]). Feedback, especially when it contains criticism, can threaten the receiver's self-esteem (Baumeister et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref23">8</reflink>]) and induce negative mood (Grundmann et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref24">41</reflink>]), something that people are likely to be aware of when providing feedback. Feedback givers may also be reluctant to provide candid feedback because they wish to protect the working relationship (Levine & Lupoli, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref25">65</reflink>]; Lupoli et al., [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref26">69</reflink>]), their own social reputation (Croft & Schmader, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref27">31</reflink>]) or anticipate that the situation will become unpleasant (Belschak & Den Hartog, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref28">11</reflink>]). At other times, people may simply underestimate how much their critical feedback would be appreciated (Abi-Esber et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref29">1</reflink>]). Receivers of feedback pick up on these cues and view positive feedback (e.g., praise, compliments) as positively inflated when they feel that the message is unspecific, exaggerated, or does not fit the level of demonstrated behavior (Brummelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref30">18</reflink>]; Siegle, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref31">85</reflink>]). The present study examines positively inflated feedback and feedback dishonesty as separate constructs. Whereas the first always suggests that the feedback is positive, the latter may occur for both positive and negative feedback. For example, someone may express <emph>some</emph> criticism but be perceived to be holding back, or may only share positive feedback in a way that feels unrealistic.</p> <p>Despite inaccurate and dishonest feedback being seemingly common at work, the determinants and consequences of such perceptions of inaccuracy and dishonesty are not yet well understood (Ashford et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref32">5</reflink>]), especially within a daily work context. This understanding is important because feedback exchanges can be expected to happen not only during formal evaluation moments but also during more informal and daily moments (e.g., during meetings or short email exchanges, when subtle remarks are made). As such, being faced with potentially dishonest or inaccurate feedback might well be a short-lived "in the moment" experience that requires social judgment, best captured shortly afterwards (Beal, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref33">9</reflink>]; Ohly et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref34">76</reflink>]; Schwarz, [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref35">83</reflink>]). A highly suitable method for capturing within-person fluctuations across time under ecologically valid circumstances are daily diary studies (Ohly et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref36">76</reflink>]; Schwarz, [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref37">83</reflink>]). These studies repeatedly assess the same psychological concepts across time, capturing meaningful within-person variability in addition to between-person differences (Ohly et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref38">76</reflink>]). This is the method that will be adopted in the current paper.</p> <p>The present paper examines a novel outcome of daily fluctuations in perceptions of feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty, namely how this may interfere with the development of a clear and stable ability self-concept. When people view feedback as inaccurate and/or dishonest, they may fail to incorporate this information into their self-views (Butler & Winne, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref39">20</reflink>]; Fulham et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref40">38</reflink>]; Harks et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref41">46</reflink>]; Inzlicht & Good, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref42">50</reflink>]; Lee et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref43">63</reflink>]). That is, their evaluations about their abilities might be less clearly formulated, more unstable across time, and characterized by higher expressions of imposter feelings (i.e., feeling like an intellectual fraud) and unworthiness (Campbell et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref44">21</reflink>]; Clance & O'Toole, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref45">26</reflink>]; Schubert & Bowker, [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref46">81</reflink>]). Also, low self-concept clarity can also lead to strong contingency on any new feedback, with people becoming too focused on feedback and responding (too) strongly to any new feedback input (Guerrettaz et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref47">42</reflink>]). Research has shown self-concept clarity, stability, and certainty (feeling like an imposter, low ability self-esteem) to be related concepts, all capturing more uncertain self-views (Schubert & Bowker, [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref48">81</reflink>]). Although these outcomes of feedback for the development of people's self-views have long been theorized (Ashford et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref49">4</reflink>]), this has hardly been examined empirically, and not in a daily context in response to feedback suspicions. We hypothesize that days on which people perceive feedback as more inaccurate (H1), dishonest (H2), and positively inflated (H3) are days on which higher imposter feelings, lower ability self-esteem, lower self-concept clarity, and lower self-concept stability are reported.</p> <p>Having a less established sense of self, in turn, has been shown to be consequential for goal-pursuit: affecting motivation and risk-raking behavior (Balundė & Paradnikė, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref50">7</reflink>]; Jiang et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref51">52</reflink>]; Kernis et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref52">55</reflink>]). Most of this work has focused on self-concept clarity in general, and not on feeling more or less clear about one's abilities in a specific performance domain. Those with more temporary unclear, unstable, or uncertain self-evaluations in a domain may also be reluctant to engage in everyday risk-taking in that domain (lack of which may in the long-term harm one's career) because doing so would further increase self-uncertainty (Emery et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref53">35</reflink>]) and thus discomfort (Van Den Bos, [<reflink idref="bib90" id="ref54">90</reflink>]). People might also feel less motivated in the domain on days when they feel less clear about their abilities because knowing with certainty that you possess skills that are needed to succeed in a field is crucial for continued persistence (Cech et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref55">24</reflink>]; Thiem & Clark, [<reflink idref="bib89" id="ref56">89</reflink>]). We hypothesize that days on which imposter feelings are higher and ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability are lower are days on which participants report less motivation (H4) and less preference for risk-taking (H5).</p> <p>Given that feedback exchange takes place at work between individuals, the organizational climate that people find themselves in at work may partially determine how frequently people receive inaccurate and dishonest feedback. A contextual factor that will be examined here is being in a more competitive (vs. collaborative) work climate. A competitive climate is "the degree to which employees perceive organizational rewards to be contingent on comparisons of their performance with their coworkers" (Brown et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref57">17</reflink>]). Despite drawbacks of highly competitive work climates, they are still dominant in many work domains, and especially in more historically male-typed fields (Berdahl et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref58">12</reflink>]; Cheryan & Markus, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref59">25</reflink>]). In competitive environments, people may become more preoccupied with themselves and their own goals (leading to less accurate assessments of others due to time pressures) and may give false feedback to others in order to advance own goals (including positively inflated feedback). Indeed, more competitive (vs. more collaborative) work climates have been shown to place relatively less value on open communication and interdependence (Diekman et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref60">32</reflink>]; Hartnell et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref61">47</reflink>]), to restrict knowledge exchange between employees (Han et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref62">43</reflink>]; Hernaus et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref63">49</reflink>]; Stefano & Micheli, [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref64">88</reflink>]), and to be associated with less helping behaviors (Koc et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref65">58</reflink>]). Furthermore, competitive climates have shown to erode interpersonal trust (Canning et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref66">23</reflink>]), and psychological safety (Glick et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref67">39</reflink>]), something that is important as well for creating space for vulnerability and honest dialogue. We expect that those in relatively more competitive (vs. collaborative) work environments will be more likely to perceive feedback as more inaccurate (H6a), dishonest (H6b), and positively inflated (H6c).</p> <p>Although competitive work climates may negatively affect everyone's ability to get accurate and honest feedback, some groups might be more affected by these processes than others. As mentioned before, those who do the evaluating might fall back on social stereotypes under time and resource constraints, thereby leading to potentially biased feedback (Fiske, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref68">36</reflink>]). Therefore, we may expect negatively stereotyped groups, such as women and minorities, to be exposed to such processes in competitive work climates more frequently (Berdahl et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref69">12</reflink>]). Indeed, research has shown that women in more competitive and male-dominated fields face more restricted access to reliable and trustworthy feedback (Buser et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref70">19</reflink>]; Doldor et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref71">33</reflink>]; Jampol & Zayas, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref72">51</reflink>]; King et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref73">56</reflink>]; Schuster et al., [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref74">82</reflink>]). This restricted access has been linked to gender bias processes, such as the increased suspicion that stereotyping played a role in feedback (Britt & Crandall, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref75">16</reflink>]; Crocker & Major, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref76">27</reflink>]; Lawrence et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref77">62</reflink>]; Schuster et al., [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref78">82</reflink>]), or women receiving more positively inflated feedback due to benevolent sexism beliefs (Jampol & Zayas, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref79">51</reflink>]; King et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref80">56</reflink>]). More generally, women in male-dominated fields tend to suffer more from the negative effects of a strongly competitive work climate (Cheryan & Markus, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref81">25</reflink>]), and feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty and its consequences may be another barrier that has not yet been fully explored. Therefore, we hypothesize that the relationship between competitive (vs. collaborative) work climates and inaccurate, dishonest and positively inflated feedback is stronger for women than for men (H7).</p> <p>These hypotheses were tested by examining the day-to-day experiences of junior researchers working in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). STEM-fields tend to show a lower representation of women and relatively stronger norms of competition than other scientific fields (Berdahl et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref82">12</reflink>]; Canning et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref83">22</reflink>]; Settles et al., [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref84">84</reflink>]; Smith et al., [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref85">86</reflink>]; Vial et al., [<reflink idref="bib93" id="ref86">93</reflink>]). Yet, there is also great variation within the STEM-fields, with some fields or disciplines being more collaborative than others, allowing us to examine how variance in this climate relates to junior researchers' daily perceived feedback honesty and accuracy. Junior researchers are a particularly interesting group to focus on here, as norms of competition and the need to improve can be expected to be particularly relevant when academics are in the earlier stages of their career exploring their abilities, and when feedback is thus most consequential for later decisions.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-2">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0179690074-3">Participants and procedure</hd> <p>Participants were PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers from the Science, Engineering, and Technology Group of Faculties of a large University in Belgian. This group comprises five major Faculties (Sciences, Bioscience Engineering, Architecture, Engineering Science and Engineering Science Technology) and includes 14 different departments (see Table 1 for the full list of departments in the sample). An invitation to participate in the study was distributed by email to all PhD and post-doctoral researchers. The faculty-wide online newsletter also posted the invitation. The study was presented as investigating the professional development of PhD and post-doctoral researchers. Participants who were interested in participating followed a link to informed consent, a contact form and background survey (the contact survey was kept separate from the other surveys to ensure anonymity). On the Monday of the week following sign-up and each day afterwards for the next 10 working days (excluding the weekends), participants received the daily survey via an email link and text message. Following these 10 days, participants completed one final survey. Responses on the different surveys were linked with an anonymous code that was unique to each participant. Participants could continue to sign-up for the study such that a new group started each week until we reached the target sample size of around 100 female and 100 male participants.</p> <p>Table 1 Representation of individuals from the different faculties and departments in the sample</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Faculty</p></th><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>Department</p></th><th align="left"><p>%</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Science</p></td><td align="left"><p>33.1%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Earth and Environmental Science</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.6%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Bioscience Engineering</p></td><td align="left"><p>19.3%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Architecture</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.6%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Architecture</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.6%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Biology</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.6%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Engineering Science</p></td><td align="left"><p>35.4%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Biosystems</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.4%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Engineering Technology</p></td><td align="left"><p>11%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Civil Engineering</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.4%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Other</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.6%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Chemistry</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.7%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Missing</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.6%</p></td><td align="left"><p>Chemical Engineering</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Computer Science</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.0%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Electrical Engineering</p></td><td align="left"><p>17%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Materials Engineering</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.7%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Microbial and molecular systems</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.8%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Physics and Astronomy</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.4%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Mechanical Engineering</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.9%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Mathematics</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.8%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Other</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.8%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>Missing</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.1%</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Out of all 230 participants who signed up, 32 did not complete any of the daily questionnaires and were filtered out of the sample. The final sample consisted of <emph>N</emph> = 1,353 data points nested in 197[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref87">1</reflink>] individuals, who on average completed 6.77 of the daily surveys (<emph>SD</emph> = 3.16, range = 1–10). One-hundred-and-one participants (55.5%) reported being female and 1% reported being non-binary. The mean age was 27.51 (<emph>SD</emph><subs><emph>age</emph></subs> = 4.29). In terms of ethnicity, a large portion of the sample indicated being white Belgian (54.1%). The other half (46.9%) of the sample (also) indicated other ethnicities, such as Dutch, French, Italian, Turkish, Moroccan, Polish, or Chinese. The majority (86.8%) indicated being a PhD researcher, of which 28.8% were in their first year, 24.5% in their second, 23.8% in their third, 15.9% in their fourth, and 7.3% in their fifth year (8.1% missing). Based on previous daily diary studies published in high-ranking journals, it is generally recommended to have at least 100 participants when focusing on the between-person level and at least 5 daily surveys (but ideally more) when focusing on the within-person or day-level (Ohly et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref88">76</reflink>]). Based on this rule of thumb, we decided to double this amount and go for a time period of two weeks, and the sample exceeds this sample size at both levels.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-4">Measures</hd> <p>Below we describe the measures relevant to the present paper (see Supplementary File for a complete list of all the measures in this study and the document with materials at https://osf.io/5m68r/ for a verbatim overview). Unless otherwise indicated, concepts were scored on an answer scale from 1 (<emph>strongly disagree</emph>) to 7 (<emph>strongly agree</emph>).</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-5">Background measures</hd> <p>We asked participants in the final survey how they perceived the <bold>work climate</bold> in their immediate lab group. We specified that this included everyone, from PhD researchers to full professors. Participants were asked to choose a number between 1 and 7 that best represented how they felt about the general work climate in their group, with each of the five items showing different antonyms at the scale ends (Kronberger & Horwath, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref89">59</reflink>]):"Competitive-Collaborative", "Intimidating-Encouraging", "Threatening-Challenging", "Anonymous-Personal", "Unhelpful-Helpful". Scores were recoded such that higher scores reflected a more competitive work climate (<emph>M</emph> = 2.82, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.22; <emph>α</emph> = 0.85).</p> <p> <bold>Trait self-esteem.</bold> Trait self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref90">80</reflink>]): e.g., "I think I have a number of good qualities" (9 items, α = 0.86). This measure was included as a covariate in secondary analyses, see 'secondary analyses' of the results section.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-6">Daily measures</hd> <p>Before assessing the feedback measures, we first wanted to check that participants had enough work-day interactions that day (in order for them to give meaningful responses). To measure this, we asked them "how often they interacted with others at work that day" (either in an online or offline setting) on a scale from 1 (<emph>Never</emph>) to 7 (<emph>Very often</emph>). Participants who selected 'never' skipped the feedback measures (in total this category was chosen about 12.2% times across the 2-week time span). Next, participants first read a brief introduction in which we defined feedback as comments or remarks they could receive from their supervisors or others. We told participants these comments and remarks could be communicated in explicit or implicit ways (e.g., somebody saying something and drawing inferences about their abilities), and during more formal or more informal moments, online or offline. Participants were told that we were interested in their experiences that workday with receiving feedback, comments, and remarks on their research-abilities.</p> <p> <bold>Feedback dishonesty.</bold> To measure to what extent participants perceived the feedback they received that day as dishonest, we included the following item, adapted from the Authenticity Doubts Scale (Lemay & Clark, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref91">64</reflink>]): "Today, I felt that others were honest when it came to giving me feedback on my abilities or work". This item was then reverse coded to reflect more dishonesty.</p> <p> <bold>Feedback inaccuracy.</bold> To measure to what extent participants perceived the feedback they received that day as inaccurate, we included the following self-developed item: <bold>"</bold>Today, I felt like others had an accurate perception of my abilities or work". This item was then reverse coded to reflect more inaccuracy.</p> <p> <bold>Positively inflated feedback</bold>. The extent to which participants felt that the feedback they received that day was positively inflated, we adopted the following item, also adapted from the Authenticity Doubts Scale (Lemay & Clark, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref92">64</reflink>]): "Today, I felt that others expressed more positive views about my abilities or work than they really felt".</p> <p> <bold>Self-concept clarity with regard to research ability.</bold> The extent to which participants that day felt they had a clear image of their research abilities was assessed with the following item adapted from the self-concept clarity scale (Campbell et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref93">21</reflink>]): "Today, I felt like I had a clear image of how well I was doing".</p> <p> <bold>Self-concept stability with regard to research ability</bold>. To assess the extent to which participants viewed their research abilities as stable that day was assessed with two items adapted from the self-concept clarity scale (Campbell et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref94">21</reflink>]): "Today, how I perceived my own abilities changed a lot" and "Today, how I thought I was doing could be completely different from one minute to the next" (<emph>r</emph>s ranged from 0.38 to 0.65 across the daily surveys). The items were reverse coded to indicate high stability.</p> <p> <bold>Imposter feelings.</bold> We assessed imposter feelings with three items: "Today, I felt afraid that others at work would discover how much knowledge or ability I really lack", "Today, I felt like my successes at work were due to some kind of luck", and "Today, I felt like people at work might find out that I am not as capable as they think I am" (1 = <emph>not at all</emph> to 7 = <emph>very much</emph>; αs ranged from 0.84 to 0.91 across the daily surveys). These items were taken from a previous daily diary study on imposter feelings among students in STEM-fields (Canning et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref95">22</reflink>]).</p> <p> <bold>Ability self-esteem</bold>. To measure ability self-esteem, we used three items from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale ([<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref96">80</reflink>]), adapting them to a daily context and reformulated to apply to research abilities: "Right now, I think I am a capable researcher, at least equal to others", "Right now, I don't think I have much to be proud of when it comes to my abilities" (R), and "Right now, I feel like I have several good qualities as a researcher" (αs ranged from 0.75 to 0.84 across the daily surveys).</p> <p> <bold>Motivation.</bold> To examine daily fluctuations in motivation, we used two items: "How motivated did you feel today to invest effort in your research work?" and "How interested were you in your research work today?" Participants reported on a scale ranging from (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref97">1</reflink>) <emph>not motivated/interested at all</emph> to (<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref98">7</reflink>) <emph>very motivated/interested</emph> (<emph>r</emph>s ranged from 0.94 to 0.96 across the daily surveys). These items were taken from previous measures of motivation in a daily diary context (Veldman et al., [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref99">92</reflink>]) and reformulated to fit our sample (i.e., PhD and post-doctoral researchers).</p> <p> <bold>Risk-taking.</bold> We measured how comfortable participants felt that day to engage in risk-taking behaviors with the following items (adapted from Petzel & Casad, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref100">77</reflink>]): "Today I attempted difficult tasks that I was not sure I could do", "Today I rather wanted to do things that made me feel confident and relaxed than things that were challenging and difficult" (R), and "Today I felt motivated to try new things I had never done before" (αs ranged from 0.59 to 0.79 across the daily surveys).</p> <p> <bold>Daily mood (control measure).</bold> The following item was used to measure participant mood: "More generally and not related to your work, how is your mood right now?", on a scale from (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref101">1</reflink>) <emph>very bad</emph> to (<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref102">7</reflink>) <emph>very good</emph>. This measure was included as a covariate in secondary analyses, see 'secondary analyses' of the results section.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-7">Analytic strategy</hd> <p>All analyses were conducted using two-level multilevel models with random intercepts using Maximum Likelihood estimations in Mplus 8.6 (Muthén & Muthén, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref103">74</reflink>]). These models take into account the nested nature of the data (days within persons: <emph>N</emph> = 1,353 data points within 197 individuals). All day-level variables were person-mean centered before being added to the model as predictors. With this strategy, we can assess whether deviations on predictor variables from a person's baseline predict fluctuations on the dependent variables. Person-mean centering is a common and reliable method to assess within-person variation (Kuppens, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref104">61</reflink>]; Ohly et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref105">76</reflink>]). As part of the secondary analyses, we included trait self-esteem and daily mood as covariates to rule out several alternative explanations for the findings.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-8">Results</hd> <p>Table 2 shows the means, variances (at the within- and between-person level), and intra-class correlations of all day-level variables. The ICCs of most of the variables fall within the range of 0.20 and 0.60, which is considered typical for ESM studies (Bolger & Laurenceau, 2013; Myin-Germeys & Kuppens, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref106">61</reflink>]). For instance, perceived dishonesty of the feedback shows an intra-class correlation of 0.30, meaning that roughly 70% of the variance in the extent to which individuals report feedback dishonesty can be attributed to daily within-person fluctuations (rather than to between-person differences). Similarly, for self-concept clarity we see that more than 60% of the variance of the scale can be explained by momentary fluctuations within individuals (Myin-Germeys & Kuppens, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref107">61</reflink>]). Table 3 shows the between-person and within-person correlations for all daily variables. Unstandardized slopes are reported since all measures were on the same scale range (7-point scales). The next section first focuses on daily relationships of feedback with self-concept measures, then we relate the self-concept measures to motivation and risk-taking. Afterwards, we report how feedback is perceived in more competitive (vs. collaborative) work climates, and whether these relationships are stronger for women (vs. men).</p> <p>Table 2 Means, variance, and intra-class correlations (ICC) of all day-level variables; 197 individuals</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Day-level variable</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean level-2</p></th><th align="left"><p>Variance level-2</p></th><th align="left"><p>Variance level-1</p></th><th align="left"><p>ICC</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Feedback dishonesty</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.46</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.01</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.31</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Feedback inaccuracy</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.64</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.68</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.12</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.38</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Positively inflated feedback</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.98</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.80</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.95</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.29</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Imposter feelings</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.79</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.64</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.65</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Ability self-esteem</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.68</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.95</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.51</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.65</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Self-concept clarity</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.17</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.79</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.22</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.39</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Self-concept stability</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5.18</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.07</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.44</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Motivation</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.78</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.15</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.02</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.49</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Risk-taking</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.65</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.42</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.52</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.22</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Table 3 Within- and between-person correlations for all daily variables (N = 1,353 data points in 197 individuals)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Daily measure</p></th><th align="left"><p>1</p></th><th align="left"><p>2</p></th><th align="left"><p>3</p></th><th align="left"><p>4</p></th><th align="left"><p>5</p></th><th align="left"><p>6</p></th><th align="left"><p>7</p></th><th align="left"><p>8</p></th><th align="left"><p>9</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>1. Feedback dishonesty</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.47***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.17*</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.09*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.20***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.07</p></td><td align="left"><p>.13**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.06</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>2. Feedback inaccuracy</p></td><td align="left"><p>.46***</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.14***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.16***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.37***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.07</p></td><td align="left"><p>.26***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>3. Positively inflated feedback</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.21**</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.17†</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.22***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>.14*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4. Imposter feelings</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.42***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.56***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.36**</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>−.20***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.19***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.27***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.18***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.07<sup>†</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>5. Ability self-esteem</p></td><td align="left"><p>.33***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.44***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.11</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.81***</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.25***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.09***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.28***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12***</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>6. Self-concept clarity</p></td><td align="left"><p>.28***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.49***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.07</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.61***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.57***</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.13***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.45***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.32***</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>7. Self-concept stability</p></td><td align="left"><p>.20**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.23**</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.37***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.50***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.25***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.17**</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.07*</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.07<sup>†</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>8. Motivation</p></td><td align="left"><p>.33***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.41***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.23*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.56***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.48***</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.07</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>.48***</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>9. Risk-taking</p></td><td align="left"><p>.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10</p></td><td align="left"><p>.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.11†</p></td><td align="left"><p>−.12†</p></td><td align="left"><p>.30***</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <emph>Note</emph> Within-person correlations are on the right of the diagonal; between-person correlations on the left. <sups>†</sups>p <.10. <sups>*</sups>p <.05. <sups>**</sups>p <.01. <sups>***</sups>p <.001</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-9">Do daily fluctuations in feedback perceptions predict imposter feelings, ability self-esteem,...</hd> <p>We hypothesized that days on which PhD and post-doc researchers perceived feedback as more dishonest (H1), inaccurate (H2), and positively inflated (H3) than they do on average would be days on which they would report higher imposter feelings, lower ability self-esteem, lower self-concept clarity, and lower self-concept stability.</p> <p>A first multilevel analysis for <emph>feedback inaccuracy</emph> showed that days on which participants perceived feedback to be more inaccurate were days on which they reported more imposter feelings (<emph>b</emph> = 0.13, 95% CI[0.05; 0.22], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.003), lower ability self-esteem (<emph>b</emph> = -0.11, 95% CI[-0.17; -0.05], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p</emph> <.001), and lower self-concept clarity (<emph>b</emph> = -0.32, 95% CI[-0.41; -0.22], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.05, <emph>p</emph> <.001), but not lower self-concept stability (<emph>b</emph> = -0.05, 95% CI[-0.14; 0.04], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.05, <emph>p</emph> =.26).</p> <p>A multilevel analysis for <emph>feedback dishonesty</emph> showed that days on which participants perceived feedback to be more dishonest were days on which they reported more imposter feelings (<emph>b</emph> = 0.09, 95% CI[0.00; 0.19], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.05, <emph>p</emph> =.04), lower ability self-esteem (<emph>b</emph> = -0.07, 95% CI[-0.14; -0.00], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p</emph> =.04), and lower self-concept clarity (<emph>b</emph> = -0.16, 95% CI[-0.26; -0.06], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.06, <emph>p</emph> =.002), but not lower self-concept stability (<emph>b</emph> = 0.07, 95% CI[-0.03; 0.17], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.05, <emph>p</emph> =.16).</p> <p>A multilevel analysis for <emph>positively inflated</emph> feedback showed that days on which participants perceived feedback to be more positively inflated were days on which they reported more imposter feelings (<emph>b</emph> = 0.12, 95% CI[0.05; 0.19], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p <</emph>.001), but not lower ability self-esteem (<emph>b</emph> = -0.04, 95% CI[-0.09; 0.01], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.02, <emph>p</emph> =.09), self-concept clarity (<emph>b</emph> = -0.02, 95% CI[-0.10; 0.05], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.55), or self-concept stability (<emph>b</emph> = -0.03, 95% CI[-0.49; -0.27], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.35).</p> <p>Finally, we also conducted a multilevel analysis with all feedback measures simultaneously as predictor variables (see Table 4 for the detailed results). This analysis showed that, when the different ways in which feedback can be experienced are examined simultaneously, mainly <emph>feedback inaccuracy</emph> was predictive of the self-concept measures. Specifically, daily feedback inaccuracy was related to daily higher imposter feelings, lower ability self-esteem, lower self-concept clarity, and now also to lower self-concept stability. At the same time, <emph>feedback dishonesty</emph> was no longer significantly related to imposter feelings, ability self-esteem, nor self-concept clarity. Unexpectedly, when looking at all feedback measures together, perceiving feedback as dishonest was associated with higher self-concept stability. Finally, <emph>positively inflated</emph> feedback was still positively related to more imposter feelings, but again was not significantly related to ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, nor self-concept stability.</p> <p>Table 4 Summary of the multilevel regression analyses for predictor variables simultaneously in model</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Independent variable</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Imposter feelings</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Ability self-esteem</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Self-concept clarity</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Self-concept stability</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Motivation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Risk-taking</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th><th align="left"><p>'b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Feedback dishonesty</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.01</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.11;</p><p>0.09</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.01</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.09;</p><p>0.06</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.11;</p><p>0.11</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.13**</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.02;</p><p>0.25</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.15</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.15;</p><p>0.05</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.07</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.20;</p><p>0.06</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Feedback inaccuracy</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.12**</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.03;</p><p>0.23</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.10**</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.16;-0.03</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.30***</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.40;</p><p>-0.03</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.11*</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.40;</p><p>-0.20</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.13**</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.22;</p><p>-0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.01</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.11;</p><p>0.34</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Positively inflated feedback</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.12***</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.06;</p><p>0.19</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.09;</p><p>0.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.11;</p><p>0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.12;</p><p>0.03</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.07*</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.01;</p><p>0.14</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.08;</p><p>0.09</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0179690074-10">How do feeling like an imposter, ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept...</hd> <p>Next, we expected that imposter feelings, ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability would predict daily motivation (H4) and daily tendency to engage in risk-taking (H5).</p> <p>First, multilevel analyses showed that motivation was indeed lower on days when participants reported higher than average imposter feelings (<emph>b</emph> = -0.21, 95% CI[-0.27; -0.15], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p <.</emph>001), and that motivation was higher on days that participants reported higher than average ability self-esteem (<emph>b</emph> = -0.38, 95% CI[-0.46; -0.30], SE = 0.04, <emph>p <</emph>.001), self-concept clarity (<emph>b</emph> = 0.37, 95% CI[0.33; 0.42], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p <</emph>.001), and self-concept stability (<emph>b</emph> = 0.08, 95% CI[0.02; 0.14], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p</emph> =.005). Again, we also conducted a multilevel analysis with all self-concept measures simultaneously as predictors (see Table 5 for the detailed results). The results remained the same as in the individual analyses for ability self-esteem and self-concept clarity. The relationship with imposter feelings became less strong, although it was still significant, and the relationship with self-concept stability became non-significant.</p> <p>Table 5 Summary of the multilevel regression analyses with self-concept variables entered simultaneously in model</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Independent variable</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Motivation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Risk-taking</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th><th align="left"><p>b</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>CI 95%</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Imposter feelings</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.06*</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.12;</p><p>0.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.02</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.10;</p><p>0.06</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Ability self-esteem</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.38***</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.30;</p><p>0.46</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.13**</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.02;</p><p>0.24</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Self-concept clarity</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.28***</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.23;</p><p>0.33</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.24***</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.17;</p><p>0.31</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Self-concept stability</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.01</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.06;</p><p>0.05</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.10**</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.17;</p><p>-0.03</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Secondly, examining risk-taking, as expected, higher than average levels of ability self-esteem (<emph>b</emph> = 0.24, 95% CI[0.02; 0.24], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.05, <emph>p</emph> <.001) and self-concept clarity (<emph>b</emph> = 0.26, 95% CI[0.14; 0.34], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p <</emph>.001) on a day was related to higher risk-taking tendencies. However, the relationship between imposter feelings and risk-taking was not significant, despite the coefficient being in the expected direction (<emph>b</emph> = -0.07, 95% CI[-0.15; 0.00], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.06), and there was no relationship with self-concept stability (<emph>b</emph> = -0.05, 95% CI[-0.12; 0.02], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.16). Again, when entering all self-concept measures as predictors simultaneously, there were some slight changes in the results (see Table 5). The prediction of risk taking with ability self-esteem and self-concept clarity stayed the same, but the prediction of imposter feelings, became much weaker. Surprisingly, self-concept stability was significantly negatively related to risk-taking. We further reflect on this finding in the discussion. Overall, then, we find support for the relations of the self-concept measures with motivation (H4) and only partial support for risk-taking (H5).</p> <p>Finally, we also exploratively examined whether motivation and risk-taking were related to the other daily measures, namely feedback. Separate multilevel models showed that motivation was lower on days with higher feedback inaccuracy (<emph>b</emph> = -0.18, 95% CI[-0.25; -0.09], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> <.001), higher feedback dishonesty (<emph>b</emph> = -0.10, 95% CI[-0.19; -0.02], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.02), and lower positively inflated feedback (<emph>b</emph> = 0.07, 95% CI[0.01; 0.14], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.03, <emph>p</emph> =.02). Additionally, risk-taking was not significantly related to feedback inaccuracy (<emph>b</emph> = -0.03, 95% CI[-0.13; 0.08], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.05, <emph>p</emph> =.65), feedback dishonesty (<emph>b</emph> = -0.06, 95% CI[-0.17; 0.06], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.06, <emph>p</emph> =.32), and positively inflated feedback (<emph>b</emph> = 0.01, 95% CI[-0.07; 0.09], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.04, <emph>p</emph> =.83). When feedback predictors were entered simultaneously to the model (see Table 4), motivation was still negatively predicted by feedback inaccuracy, and positively predicted by positively inflated feedback but not by feedback dishonesty. Risk-taking was again not significantly related to feedback inaccuracy, feedback dishonesty, or positively inflated feedback.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-11">How does a competitive work climate relate to feedback perceptions?</hd> <p>Next, we examined work climate and expected that individuals in more competitive (vs. collaborative) work climates would perceive the feedback they receive on their abilities as more dishonest (H6a), inaccurate (H6b), and as positively inflated (H6c). Since the predictor here is on the between-person level, results can only examine how a competitive work climate relates to feedback perceptions <emph>overall</emph> (i.e., examine if persons in more competitive research groups perceive feedback differently, as averaged across the number of days they participated) and not to daily fluctuations in feedback perceptions (Muthén & Muthén, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref108">74</reflink>]). A multilevel analysis supported most of the hypotheses and demonstrated that perceiving one's work environment as more competitive was indeed related to perceiving feedback as overall more dishonest (<emph>b</emph> = 0.35, 95% CI[0.21; 0.49], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.07, <emph>p</emph> <.001) and more inaccurate (<emph>b</emph> = 0.36, 95% CI[0.19; 0.51], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.08, <emph>p</emph> <.001), but not as more positively inflated (<emph>b</emph> = 0.16, 95% CI[0.36; 0.04], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.10, <emph>p</emph> =.12). We return to this finding in the general discussion. In sum, we find support for H6a and H6b, but not for H6c.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-12">Is the relationship between a more competitive (vs. collaborative) work climate and feedback...</hd> <p>Lastly, we tested whether gender moderated the relationship between competitive work climate and perceiving feedback as inaccurate, dishonest, and positively inflated. We expected that this link would be stronger for female (vs. male) PhD and post-doc researchers (H7). Overall, we did not find support for this hypothesis. A multi-level analysis did not find a significant interaction between competitive work climate and gender (0 = male, 1 = female) on feedback accuracy (<emph>b</emph> = -0.23, 95% CI[-0.59; 0.14], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.19, <emph>p</emph> =.22), feedback dishonesty (<emph>b</emph> = -0.26, 95% CI[-0.56; 0.03], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.15, <emph>p</emph> =.08), nor for positively inflated feedback (<emph>b</emph> = -0.18, 95% CI[-0.28; 0.64], <emph>SE</emph> = 0.24, <emph>p</emph> =.44). Overall, then, gender was not a significant moderator in the relationship between competitive work climate and feedback perceptions[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref109">2</reflink>]. We return to this finding in the general discussion.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-13">Secondary analyses</hd> <p>Secondary analyses showed that there were overall no changes in the results when controlling for daily mood and general trait self-esteem. This shows that the relationships identified here could not simply be explained by how people generally viewed themselves or their mood that day (see supplementary material for more details).</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-14">Discussion</hd> <p>The current study focused on the role of a competitive work climate for the daily feedback experiences that junior researchers encounter and the consequences that this carries for the clarity, stability, and certainty of their ability self-concept. Concretely, we find that, in more competitive (vs. collaborative) work climates, junior researchers encountered feedback that they saw as on average more inaccurate and dishonest (but not as more positively inflated). This relationship was not moderated by participant gender. On the daily level, we found that the clarity, stability, and certainty of people's ability self-concept fluctuated significantly, and that this fluctuation could partly be explained by their daily feedback experiences. Specifically, daily encounters with inaccurate feedback was, as expected, consistently related to stronger imposter feelings, and lower self-concept clarity and esteem regarding one's research abilities. Daily encountered inaccurate feedback was only related to lower self-concept stability when all predictors were added to the model simultaneously. The same relationships were identified for feedback dishonesty, although these did not remain when feedback predictors were examined simultaneously in the model; only feedback inaccuracy remained a significant predictor then of the self-concept measures. This may reflect a potential process where perceived dishonesty is an indirect reflection of the feedback being ultimately seen as inaccurate, and indeed additional analyses revealed that inaccuracy did predict dishonesty on the within-day level (see supplementary material for more details). Daily experiences of positively inflated feedback were not consistently related to the self-concept measures, except for higher imposter feelings. Higher imposter feelings, and lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability in turn were related to lower daily motivation. This showed that junior researchers felt more interested in their research work and more motivated to invest effort in it on days when they felt more clear, stable, and certain about their ability self-concept than they did on average, and had lower imposter feelings than on average. For risk-taking tendencies, only self-concept clarity and ability self-esteem were significant predictors, indicating that junior researchers were more willing to take risks in their research work on days when they had higher than average self-concept clarity and ability self-esteem. All of these results remained when controlling for general self-esteem and daily mood. Thus it is not the case that the results could fully be explained by how participants viewed themselves generally or their daily mood when filling in the questionnaires.</p> <p>Together, these findings demonstrate a few important things. First, they show the potential drawbacks of a competitive (vs. more collaborative) work climate for feedback quality, thereby fitting into the larger literature showing negative consequences of competitive work climates both for interpersonal dynamics (Berdahl et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref110">12</reflink>]; Cheryan & Markus, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref111">25</reflink>]; Glick et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref112">39</reflink>]; Koc et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref113">58</reflink>]) and for individual employees (Babalola et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref114">6</reflink>]; Rai et al., [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref115">78</reflink>]; Vial et al., [<reflink idref="bib93" id="ref116">93</reflink>]). Of course, given that the current data is strictly correlational, we cannot draw firm conclusions about whether a competitive work climate is the root cause of people perceiving feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest or whether other variables not measured here could explain this finding (such as people in these climates somehow being more distrustful of others <emph>in general</emph>, causing them to both perceive the environment as more competitive, and the information they receive from others as more false and dishonest). However, by controlling for people's trait self-esteem and individual baseline by centering all predictor variables (at the daily-level), we are able to rule out the possibility that the results were solely driven by how participants generally viewed themselves, and their general tendency of engaging with feedback. Centering predictor variables is a common practice for analyzing clustered data, and takes out a participant's general tendency to, for instance, view feedback as inaccurate (as averaged across the sampled days and doing the same for all other predictor variables). So, by controlling for trait self-esteem and by focusing on the daily level and capturing the <emph>variability</emph> in people's feedback experiences, we can conclude that the results do not simply reflect individual difference factors such as trait self-esteem or a general tendency to be mistrustful of feedback. We were also able to establish that the 10 sampled working days were fairly representative of junior researchers' regular work weeks, since we asked participants to report if any out of the ordinary event occurred, something that only happened 20% across all sampled days and these events were often work-related still. Furthermore, when days on which an out-of-the-ordinary event were left out of the analysis, the results either held up or sometimes became even stronger.</p> <p>Second, the results point to the importance of whether feedback is considered trustworthy. This paper gives first insights into the consequences of being exposed to inaccurate and dishonest feedback for daily fluctuations in the clarity, stability, and certainty of people's ability self-concept, their motivation and risk-taking tendencies. Crucially, these within-day relationships demonstrate that how people view their abilities is something that fluctuates depending on their daily feedback experiences, with consequences for people's ability to develop a clear and stable self-concept. These results thus provide the first evidence as to how important it is– especially for those in power who more often do the evaluating (Bear et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref117">10</reflink>])– to give accurate, considered feedback and to avoid generic statements that can be perceived as impersonal, inaccurate or dishonest, as this may hinder professional development. The current paper thereby fits into the larger literature on the importance of high-quality feedback that people can rely upon (Doldor et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref118">33</reflink>]). It is worth mentioning that distrusting feedback might also have some benefits. Attaching less weight to negative feedback for instance can be beneficial because it allows people to stay in a positive mood (Grundmann et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref119">41</reflink>]) and protect their self-esteem (Crocker et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref120">29</reflink>]). Still, as examined here, it may also have important harmful consequences, as how people evaluate their abilities can start to fluctuate when feedback is distrusted, making it more difficult to develop a clear, certain, and stable self-concept. Showing how disengagement from feedback can have both benefits and hidden costs for the self-concept further underlines the complexity of how people navigate their social environment to gather self-knowledge. One expectation that we did not find support for was the hypothesis that the relationship between competitive climate and feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty would be stronger for women. This might be because there was too little (variance in) gender identity threat in these environments, and indeed a measure that we had of daily gender identity threat suggested this to be the case (see footnote 2). Another possibility is that young researchers are in the short run similarly affected by these circumstances independent of their gender, but that gender starts to play a role more strongly in the longer run (also as junior researchers climb up the academic ladder even more, and as women become even less represented). Everyone can be expected to need high-quality feedback when entering a field and feeling more uncertain (Light & Visser, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref121">66</reflink>])– which might have been the case in our sample of young researchers. This speaks to the larger costs associated with a competitive work climate, showing that such climates can hurt everyone (Berdahl et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref122">12</reflink>]). Still, women in more competitive and male-dominated fields might be more negatively affected in the longer run when they repeatedly miss out on high-quality feedback and guidance, as this may reinforce self-doubt and lead to exiting the field. This may be because, in these climates, women tend to already be viewed as falling outside of the male norm of what a typical and ideal worker is (Cheryan & Markus, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref123">25</reflink>]; Lombard et al., [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref124">68</reflink>]), making ability self-doubt potentially a more salient or consequential experience for them. The same might apply to other negatively stereotyped and underrepresented groups in work and education, such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQI+, or first-generation university students (Allen et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref125">2</reflink>]; Blondé et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref126">14</reflink>]; Boucher et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref127">15</reflink>]; O'Brien et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref128">75</reflink>]; van der Toorn & Gaitho, [<reflink idref="bib91" id="ref129">91</reflink>]). For example, ethnic minorities are frequently exposed to paternalistic, overly positively feedback, which can greatly increase feedback suspicion (Harber et al., 2023). Indeed, based on the broader evidence of how stereotyping interferes with feedback-quality, feedback-opportunities, and feedback-trust (Crocker et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref130">29</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref131">30</reflink>]; Crocker & Major, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref132">28</reflink>]; Croft & Schmader, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref133">31</reflink>]; Doldor et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref134">33</reflink>]; Harber, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref135">44</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref136">45</reflink>]; King et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref137">56</reflink>]; Kunstman et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref138">60</reflink>]; Lawrence et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref139">62</reflink>]; Major et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref140">71</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref141">72</reflink>]), we can expect minoritized groups to be more frequently exposed to such daily feedback suspicions over time– at least within threatening environments where stereotypes are salient– and as a result face more difficulty developing a clear, stable and certain ability self-concept due to more daily fluctuations. Because an underdeveloped and more uncertain self-concept may then impair motivation and risk-taking (as also suggested but the findings in the present study), this can then come at the detriment of diversity representation in various education and work fields where groups contend with a devalued and minority status.</p> <p>A second unsupported expectation was that feedback would be more positively inflated in more competitive work climates. This might have been because people may be less likely to be given very high praise in competitive climates and more likely to receive negative feedback. The relatively low mean on positively inflated feedback (as compared to dishonest and inaccurate feedback) supports this thought. It is possible that issues with feedback in competitive work climates are less about inflated positive feedback, and more about experienced dishonesty and inaccuracy of the feedback (which, in turn, was also most consequential for the ability self-concept in the present study).</p> <p>There are also some specific limitations attached to the current study, and some questions that remained unanswered and that could be addressed by future research. Since the study is correlational, reversed causation cannot be completely excluded as an explanation. Although we were able to account for between-person differences in general self-esteem and within-person differences in daily mood, we cannot rule out the possibility that for instance participants on a specific day first felt like an imposter, which then made them perceive feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest. The same can be said for the relationship between self-concept stability and risk-taking, which was unexpectedly negative (and became significant when all self-concept predictors were in the model). It might be that taking more risks on a day can also make people feel more unstable about themselves (especially in combination with having a less clear perception of one's abilities on a day) because people step out of their comfort zone and are confronted with new parts of themselves, which we know from research can be temporarily destabilizing (Emery et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref142">35</reflink>]; Light & Visser, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref143">66</reflink>]). However, as noted earlier, with a daily-diary approach, differences in how participants <emph>generally</emph> view feedback and themselves are already taken out of the analysis. By centering all predictor variables, the analysis controls for a person's average tendency to view feedback as inaccurate, dishonest, and positively inflated, showing how deviations from a person's own baseline relate to their daily ability self-concept. We also controlled for trait self-esteem to rule out alternative explanations for the data (see supplementary material). Still, to draw firm causal conclusions, future studies can also use experimental methods by having participants recall an instance that they had of inaccurate feedback (or dishonest and positively inflated) and then measure (with some delay) their imposter feelings, ability state self-esteem, self-concept clarity and self-concept stability. This would also temporally separate the predictor from the outcome variable (Spector & Meier, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref144">87</reflink>]), which allows for more causal claims.</p> <p>With the currently used method we did not focus on specific feedback instances. Rather, in the present study we asked participants to reflect on the experiences with feedback they had that day (by prompting them to think of the interactions they had that day [online or offline, during formal or informal moments] during which they received some feedback on their work or abilities), rather than asking them to take a specific instance in mind. We made this choice because we did not want to risk losing data points should participants not be able to think of a very specific feedback instance which they would then answer questions on. Future research could gather more information about the specific instances that people might have in mind. For instance, feedback can be seen as dishonest when it is critical but sugarcoated, or dishonest when it is positive but too praising. The same can be said for inaccurate feedback, which might yield slightly different consequences for the clarity, stability and certainty of the ability self-concept depending on whether the feedback is positive or negative, although both would still be expected to lead to impaired self-knowledge and uncertainty. Future research may look into this further, distinguishing whether feedback valence matters for perceived dishonesty and inaccuracy and its consequences.</p> <p>Another potential limitation is that we relied on single items for measuring feedback perceptions. It is important to note that it is common practice to use single-item measures in daily-diary research (Ohly et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref145">76</reflink>]), as it helps reduce participant burden which is important given that daily-diary studies can get quite demanding for participants and length increases dropout/selection and other unwelcome consequences. Additionally, studies have shown that single-item measures can have equal reliability and validity (Robins et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref146">79</reflink>]; Wanous et al., [<reflink idref="bib95" id="ref147">95</reflink>]). Still, future research also using other methods may use multiple-item measures to capture feedback suspicions more broadly.</p> <p>Finally, a suitable approach for daily-diary data on which future research could focus is to make use of survival models, which look into the circumstances that precede a particular event or social interaction while taking the time passed between events into account (Elmer et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref148">34</reflink>]). Future work could, for instance, look into the possibility that specific social dynamics within a research group on a given day - may precede inaccurate or dishonest feedback, focusing also on specific characteristics such as what type of feedback interactions are more likely to occur (e.g., receiving feedback from a supervisor or colleague, or both within the same social interaction, the content of the feedback). This will further our understanding also of what conditions or interventions could facilitate more candid and considerate feedback.</p> <p>To conclude, this paper shows the importance of receiving on a day-to-day basis feedback that people feel they can rely upon for the development of a clear, stable, and certain ability self-concept– which is less likely in a more competitive work climate and is consequential for motivation. In the long-run, these outcomes may translate into career-related outcomes such as lower performance and lower promotion seeking, and higher turnover. Future research may look more into the possibility of minority groups being affected more than others through more frequent exposure to inaccurate and dishonest feedback, and at going beyond these more short-term consequences and also looking at more cumulative effects.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-15">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>We would like to thank Andrea Bardyn for assisting us with the data collection. Another special thanks goes to Ugur Ozkusen (student at Ozygen University,Turkey) for his assistance with data preparation.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-16">Funding</hd> <p>This work was supported by an Odysseus grant to Colette Van Laar (grant number G.O.E66.14 N).</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-17">Data availability</hd> <p>data and analytic scripts can be found on the Open Science Framework (OSF): https://osf.io/5m68r/.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-18">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0179690074-19">Conflict of interests</hd> <p>There are no conflict of interests for the authors to declare.</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-20">Electronic supplementary material</hd> <p>Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.</p> <p>Graph: Supplementary Material 1</p> <hd id="AN0179690074-21">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0179690074-22"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref4" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Abi-Esber N, Abel JE, Schroeder J, Gino F. 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Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 2014; 143; 2: 804-824. 10.1037/a0033906</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0179690074-23"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibtext> The demographics were assessed in the first background survey and this survey was not completed by approximately 8% of participants. Thus, the demographics are reported on the 181 participants who did complete the demographics.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> A potential reason for this might be that the participants who took part in our sample worked in competitive but not necessarily identity-threatening environments. Indeed, we also measured daily experienced gender identity threat and found that both men and women reported low gender identity threat in the studied environments (<emph>M</emph> = 1.21; <emph>SD</emph> = 0.37; on a scale ranging from 1 = <emph>not at all</emph> to 7 = <emph>very much</emph>). And also that there were no gender difference in average experienced identity threat, <emph>F</emph>(1, 176) = 1.754, <emph>p</emph> =.18, η<subs>p</subs><sups>2</sups> = 0.01.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Iris Meinderts; Jenny Veldman and Colette Van Laar</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>Iris Meinderts is a Doctoral Researcher at the Center for Social & Cultural Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium). Her research focuses on how feedback processes affect the development of the self-concept. Her main interest lies with the specific challenges and opportunities that members of negatively stereotyped groups face when navigating identity-threatening environments in order to come to an accurate, clear, and stable, understanding of their abilities in a domain, and how this affects their goal pursuit.</p> <p>Jenny Veldman is an Assistant Professor at the department of Social, Health and Organizational Psychology (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands). She is a social psychological researcher focusing on the social identity processes involved in group inequalities in work and education settings. Her two main streams of research examine (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref149">1</reflink>) how, when, and why social identities act as a barrier in achievement, well-being, and choices in work and education; and (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref150">2</reflink>) how members of underrepresented groups navigate majority-group contexts and cope with the challenges they face in work and education. In her research, she combines longitudinal and experience sampling studies in both naturalistic settings and organizations with (lab) experiments.</p> <p>Colette van Laar is Full Professor of Social Psychology at the Center for Social & Cultural Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven). Her research examines social psychological mechanisms that transfer negative group stereotypes and prejudice into lower outcomes in work and education. She conducts research among women in traditionally male-dominated fields, men in traditionally female-dominated fields, and ethnic and cultural minorities and LBGTQI + groups in contexts in which they are disadvantaged or negatively stereotyped. Her research includes research in organizations, experimental studies - including studies using psychophysiological techniques, large cross-national and survey studies, and intensive longitudinal methods such as experience sampling techniques.</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib57" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib67" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib73" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib96" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref9"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref11"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib54" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" 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  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Daily Feedback Suspicion and Ability-Uncertainty among Junior Researchers in Competitive Work Climates in STEM
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Iris+Meinderts%22">Iris Meinderts</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8190-1035">0000-0001-8190-1035</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Jenny+Veldman%22">Jenny Veldman</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1560-4512">0000-0003-1560-4512</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Colette+Van+Laar%22">Colette Van Laar</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8113-1242">0000-0002-8113-1242</externalLink>)
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  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Social+Psychology+of+Education%3A+An+International+Journal%22"><i>Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal</i></searchLink>. 2024 27(4):1-25.
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  Label: Availability
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  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
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  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 25
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2024
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
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  Label: Descriptors
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Researchers%22">Researchers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Research%22">Student Research</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Students%22">College Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Goal+Orientation%22">Goal Orientation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Intergroup+Relations%22">Intergroup Relations</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Competition%22">Competition</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Feedback+%28Response%29%22">Feedback (Response)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Positive+Reinforcement%22">Positive Reinforcement</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Negative+Reinforcement%22">Negative Reinforcement</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Esteem%22">Self Esteem</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Performance+Based+Assessment%22">Performance Based Assessment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22STEM+Education%22">STEM Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interpersonal+Communication%22">Interpersonal Communication</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Motivation%22">Student Motivation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Work+Environment%22">Work Environment</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s11218-024-09898-z
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1381-2890<br />1573-1928
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Having a clear and stable sense of how one performs in a field is a key contributor to goal pursuit. Performance feedback is often considered a crucial resource for developing this clear and stable self-knowledge but may be less optimally integrated when feedback is considered inaccurate or dishonest. The current paper investigates how such feedback perceptions may limit the development of people's ability self-concept, and how workplace contexts can restrict communication. A 2-week daily diary study among 197 junior researchers working in STEM-fields (N = 1,353 data points) showed that those in more competitive (vs. more collaborative) work environments overall perceived feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest (but not as more positively inflated). These results did not differ for men and women, showing that both face negative consequences of working in a more competitive context in terms of their ability to get high-quality feedback. On the daily level, results showed that days on which people received more inaccurate and dishonest (but not positively inflated) feedback were also days on which they reported higher imposter feelings, and lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability. In turn, days on which people felt more like an imposter and reported lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability, were also days on which motivation was lower. Ability self-esteem and self-concept clarity (but not imposter feelings and self-concept stability) were also related to lower daily risk-taking tendencies. Together, these results show that an important contextual factor--the perceived competitiveness of one's work environment--influences feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty, with consequences for the ability to develop a clear, stable and certain ability self-concept.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2024
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1439589
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1439589
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s11218-024-09898-z
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 25
        StartPage: 1
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Researchers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Research
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: College Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Goal Orientation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Intergroup Relations
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Competition
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Feedback (Response)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Positive Reinforcement
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Negative Reinforcement
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Self Esteem
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Performance Based Assessment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: STEM Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Interpersonal Communication
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Motivation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Work Environment
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Daily Feedback Suspicion and Ability-Uncertainty among Junior Researchers in Competitive Work Climates in STEM
        Type: main
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            NameFull: Iris Meinderts
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            NameFull: Jenny Veldman
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Colette Van Laar
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 08
              Type: published
              Y: 2024
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1381-2890
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1573-1928
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 27
            – Type: issue
              Value: 4
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal
              Type: main
ResultId 1