Employee Performance: What's Your Evaluation?

Indianapolis, IN

Performance appraisals are often carried out in the workplace to provide management with a tool that measures an employee's contributions to the organization, while also producing important information about other aspects such as training, promotions, and compensation (Selden, Sherrier, & Wooters, 2012). Previous research has indicated that "individuals are particularly motivated to receive favorable feedback on dimensions that are relationship critical in a given context" (O'Malley & Levy, 2010). Based on these findings regarding positive feedback and performance appraisals, it is reasonable to predict that employees would not hesitate to give themselves an overly inflated self-evaluation. The present study examines the college student's perspective on appraisals while also testing their memory. Following informed consent, 42 Butler University undergraduate students provided their feedback after reviewing an employee's performance via a video clip and either an accurate self-evaluation (n = 20) or an inflated self-evaluation (n = 22). Approximately one week later, participants filled out an online survey testing their memory for the employee's performance that they observed in the video. I hypothesize that participants in the inflated self-evaluation condition will be more likely to produce different feedback between the first and second sessions. Specifically, their second performance appraisals will reflect the more accurate information that was originally presented in the video. However, the participants placed into the accurate self-evaluation condition will not change their performance appraisals from the first to the second session.