Ariella is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School where she studies behavioral design. Specifically, she is interested in how environments can be structured to reduce bias in the workplace, in educational settings, in the online context, and in many others. She is also a Lara Warner Scholar of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, Ariella worked for the Behavioural Insights Team in London, where she applied findings from behavioral science to public policy. She has focused on delivering policy advice and designing and implementing field experiments related to sustainable transportation, criminal justice, and organizational behavior. Ariella graduated from Yale University with a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics.
Jaewon Yoon, Hayley Blunden, Ariella Kristal and A.V. Whillans
When looking to improve workplace performance, people often seek third-party input by asking for feedback. However, we propose that asking for feedback might not be the most effective way of soliciting critical and actionable input. We offer a simple yet powerful alternative: ask for advice instead. Across four experiments (N=1,438), including a field experiment, we show that people offer more critical and actionable input when they are asked to provide advice (versus feedback)—even when they are asked to provide comments on identical output. When asked to provide feedback (versus advice), givers focus too much on evaluating the recipient, which undermines their ability to generate constructive (i.e. critical and actionable) input. Our findings suggest that framing feedback provision as advice provision may be a promising way of soliciting constructive third-party input.
Jaewon Yoon, Hayley Blunden, Ariella Kristal and A.V. Whillans
Conventional wisdom says you should ask your colleagues for feedback. However, research suggests that feedback often has no (or even a negative) impact on our performance. This is because the feedback we receive is often too vague—it fails to highlight what we can improve on or how to improve. New research suggests a better approach. Across four experiments—including a field experiment conducted in an executive education classroom—researchers found that people received more effective input when they asked for advice rather than feedback.
