THE DYNAMICS OF IMPLICIT THEORIES OF GROUP-PERFORMANCE - WHEN AND HOW DO THEY OPERATE

A laboratory experiment was designed to: (1) reexamine recent findings that observers' recollections of a group's activities, in contrast to subjective evaluations, are unaffected by performance feedback and the implicit theories that such cues elicit; and (2) identify the underlying process(es) mediating the effects of performance cues on distorted recollections of group behavior. Two hundred and twenty-one participants observed a task performing group and then were given positive, negative, or no performance feedback. Immediately after or 1 week later, participants completed an evaluative rating scale and a questionnaire measuring their recollections of the group's effective and ineffective behavior. Results indicate that the evaluative ratings and the behavioral recollections were distorted by the performance cues. However, contrary to predictions, the biasing effects of positive versus negative cues were not more pronounced in the delayed rating conditions. In fact, only in the immediate rating conditions were recollections of ineffective behavior affected. Analyses using measures derived from statistical decision theory indicated that distorted recollections of the group's behavior were the result of a systematic response bias in which observers adopted a more liberal decision criterion when judging the occurrence of expected behaviors. The implications of this research for organizational practices and theory development are discussed. © 1991.