Bitter endings

Bitter Sweet or Sweet Bitter?

 How Valence Order and Source Identity Influence Feedback Acceptance

Content creators are less receptive to feedback with negative valence, and such feedback is frequently received online. To address this problem, we propose a novel method that orders a set of feedback based on its valence; using the feedback with positive valence to mitigate the effects of the negative valence feedback. To test the method, participants (N=270) wrote a story for children based on a given illustration and then revised their story after receiving a set of feedback.

The feedback set was delivered with different valence orders and with different source identity cues. We measured participants' affective states, perceptions of the feedback and its source, revision extents, and story quality. Our main result is that presenting negative feedback last improved content creators' affective states and their perception of the feedback set relative to placing the negative feedback in other positions. This pattern was consistent across all feedback source conditions. The work contributes a simple and novel way to order a set of feedback that improves feedback receptivity.

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