Moral Feedback and Motivation: Revisiting the Undermining Effect

Social psychologists have evidence that evaluative feedback on others’ choices sometimes has unwelcome negative effects on hearers’ motivation. Holroyd’s article (Holroyd J. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 10:267–278, 2007) draws attention to one such result, the undermining effect, that should help to c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Springer, Elise (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2008
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2008, Volume: 11, Issue: 4, Pages: 407-423
Further subjects:B Intrinsic motivation
B Moral feedback
B Psychological reactance
B Moral Appraisal
B Praise
B Moral Criticism
B Moral Motivation
B Moral communication
B Moral Judgment
B Anticonformity
B Blame
B Autonomy
B Undermining effect
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Summary:Social psychologists have evidence that evaluative feedback on others’ choices sometimes has unwelcome negative effects on hearers’ motivation. Holroyd’s article (Holroyd J. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 10:267–278, 2007) draws attention to one such result, the undermining effect, that should help to challenge moral philosophers’ complacency about blame and praise. The cause for concern is actually greater than she indicates, both because there are multiple kinds of negative effect on hearer motivation, and because these are not, as she hopes, reliably counteracted by implicit features of praise and blame. The communicative ideal that she articulates does point us in the right direction, but it requires further elaboration. Once it is spelled out, we find that realizing this ideal, in light of the empirical research, requires rethinking the role of verdict-like judgments within moral feedback.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-008-9116-8