Frequency of social evaluation in self-observed daily interactions

This study evaluated the widely-held assumption that social evaluations (and especially negative feedback) are infrequent in daily interactions. Whereas previous investigations have asked about evaluative interactions using a one-sitting questionnaire format, this research requested undergraduates to self-observe, in a structured way, five different hours of social interaction and to report on sources and content of social feedback. Instances of evaluation were counted and judged as being positive or negative feedback. Participants reported an average of 2.6 evaluations per rated hour of interaction. Of the reports that were clearly classifiable as positive or negative feedback, an average of 61.4% were rated as positive. Students living at home with family members reported fewer instances of positive feedback (51.3%) than those living away from home (70.1%), and family members gave positive evaluations more infrequently (39.1%) that did friends (64.6%) and all other evaluators (66.2%). Limitations and implications of these findings are discussed briefly.