Who presents worst? a study on expressions of negative feedback in different intergroup contexts

We studied the effect of two intergroup contexts (in-group and out-group) on the way people use verbal and nonverbal signals when giving feedback. Participants evaluated another person’s low quality oral presentation by filling out evaluation forms and by making a personal video message for the speaker. Participants were led to believe that the addressee was either a fellow student (in-group condition) or a student from another university (outgroup condition). We found no intergroup effect on written feedback. Next, independent judges rated feedback givers’ appreciation in the video messages (spoken feedback) based on verbal and nonverbal expressions. When judging only the verbal content, messages addressed to out-group members were more appreciative than messages addressed to in-group members. When these messages were judged on the speaker’s nonverbal expressions, messages addressed to in-group members were more appreciative than the messages to out-group members.