The future of feedback: Motivating performance improvement through future-focused feedback.

Managerial feedback discussions often fail to produce the desired performance improvements. Three studies shed light on why performance feedback fails and how it can be made more effective. In Study 1, managers described recent performance feedback experiences in their work settings. In Studies 2 and 3, pairs of managers role-played a performance review meeting. In all studies, recipients of mixed and negative feedback doubted the accuracy of the feedback and the providers' qualifications to give it. Disagreement regarding past performance was greater following the feedback discussion than before, due to feedback recipients' increased self-protective and self-enhancing attributions. Managers were motivated to improve to the extent they perceived the feedback conversation to be focused on future actions rather than on past performance. Our findings have implications for the theory and practice of performance management.

Cost-Effectiveness of MRI-Based Identification of Presymptomatic Autism in a High-Risk Population.

Biological siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have increased risk of receiving an ASD diagnosis. In the U.S., most children with ASD are diagnosed after the optimal age to initiate early intervention which can reduce symptom severity and improve outcomes. Recent evidence suggests magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the first year of life can predict later diagnostic status in high-risk siblings. We investigated whether MRI-based screening is a cost-effective method for assigning early intervention. A hybrid decision tree/Markov model was used to evaluate two MRI-based screening strategies at 6 and 12 months of age. Primary outcomes were costs in U.S. dollars and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Results were reported as incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Costs were estimated from societal, health care, and educational perspectives. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed. From a societal perspective, the ICER for MRI-based screening at 6 months was $49,000 per QALY when compared to the status quo, implying that such screening is cost-effective at willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds of $50,000-$100,000 per QALY. From the health care and educational perspectives, the ICERs were larger at $99,000 and $76,000 per QALY, respectively. Sensitivity analysis identified that the parameters most influential in affecting cost-effectiveness were the prevalence of ASD and/or co-occurring intellectual disability. MRI specificity also has significant impacts which add to the uncertainty of the results. Future work is needed to determine the sensitivity and, in particular, the specificity of MRI with more certainty. Notably, the cost of the MRI-based screening had the least impact.

The phenomenology of fit: linking the person and environment to the subjective experience of person-environment fit.

The authors distinguished 3 approaches to the study of perceived person-environment fit (P-E fit): (a) atomistic, which examines perceptions of the person and environment as separate entities; (b) molecular, which concerns the perceived comparison between the person and environment; and (c) molar, which focuses on the perceived similarity, match, or fit between the person and environment. Distinctions among these approaches have fundamental implications for theory, measurement, and the subjective experience of P-E fit, yet research has treated these approaches as interchangeable. This study investigated the meaning and relationships among the atomistic, molecular, and molar approaches to fit and examined factors that influence the strength of these relationships. Results showed that the relationships among the approaches deviate markedly from the theoretical logic that links them together. Supplemental analyses indicated that molar fit overlaps with affect and molecular fit gives different weight to atomistic person and environment information depending on how the comparison is framed. These findings challenge fundamental assumptions underlying P-E fit theories and have important implications for future research.