Self-Solicited Feedback: Effects of Hourly Pay and Individual Monetary Incentive Pay

Abstract

The frequency of feedback solicitation under hourly pay and individual monetary incentive pay conditions was examined. A between-subjects design was used with 30 college students in the two groups. Participants attended three experimental sessions and entered the cash value of simulated bank checks presented on a computer screen. Performance was higher for individuals who were paid incentives; however, participants who were paid incentives did not self-solicit feedback more than those who were paid hourly. Rather, participants in both groups solicited feedback quite frequently. Additionally, performance was not related to feedback solicitation. These results suggest that the incentives did not make feedback more reinforcing even though the incentives were functional rewards and the feedback was correlated with the amount of pay earned: the better the feedback, the more pay participants earned. The results also support the position that it may be necessary to pair objective feedback with an evaluative component to enhance performance.

Keywords:

• self-solicited feedback
• hourly pay
• incentive pay

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the Western Michigan University Graduate College for providing funds to conduct this study. We also want to acknowledge the helpful comments from Heather M. McGee, PhD, and Kevin J. Munson, PhD, on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

This study was conducted as the doctoral dissertation of Julie M. Slowiak. Portions of this research were presented at the Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention for the Association for Behavior Analysis in Chicago, Illinois, in May 2008.

Julie M. Slowiak, PhD, is now affiliated with the University of Minnesota Duluth as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.