Department of Psychology, Saarland University.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2019 Aug;117(2):282-309. doi: 10.1037/pspa0000155. Epub 2019 Apr 8.
Psychological researchers often use powerful experimental manipulations to temporarily reduce participants' well-being. Postexperimental debriefings are intended to eliminate such detrimental effects. However, experimentally induced beliefs can persevere even when the underlying information is explicitly discredited. The present research investigates, in the context of ego-threatening manipulations, whether postexperimental debriefings reestablish participants' prestudy conditions. In 6 studies, participants received false feedback about their intelligence (Studies 1 and 5) or their attractiveness and likability (Studies 2-4 and 6), completed dependent variables indicative of well-being (Studies 1, 2, and 4-6), or aggressive behavior and hostile attributions (Study 3), and were thoroughly debriefed. Participants reported lower well-being and exhibited more hostile attributions after receiving negative compared with neutral or positive feedback. These effects were not eliminated when participants had been debriefed before completing the dependent variables, either in writing (Studies 1-6), in person (Studies 4 and 5), or when additionally writing a self-affirming essay (Studies 4 and 5). A prolonged and extensive personal debriefing (Study 6) was most effective in reducing the aversive effects of ego threat. Follow-up assessments revealed that affective consequences of the ego threat persevered for 2 weeks and longer. Internal meta-analyses corroborated these results, but also showed that all debriefing versions, even if not fully effective, ameliorated the effects of ego threat at least to some extent. Taken together, the present findings illustrate the only partial effectiveness of different debriefing procedures, stress the importance of carefully designing postexperimental debriefings to avoid ethical concerns, and more generally point to potentially effective ways to deal with negative feedback and personal threats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
心理学研究人员经常使用强大的实验操作来暂时降低参与者的幸福感。实验后的汇报旨在消除这种不利影响。然而，即使基础信息被明确否定，实验诱导的信念也可能持续存在。本研究在威胁自我的实验操作背景下，调查了实验后汇报是否能恢复参与者的研究前状态。在 6 项研究中，参与者收到了关于自己智力（研究 1 和 5）或吸引力和可爱度（研究 2-4 和 6）的错误反馈，完成了幸福感的因变量（研究 1、2 和 4-6），或攻击性行为和敌意归因（研究 3），并进行了彻底的汇报。与中性或积极反馈相比，参与者在收到负面反馈后报告的幸福感较低，表现出更多的敌意归因。即使在完成因变量之前，参与者已经以书面形式（研究 1-6）、亲自（研究 4 和 5）或在附加写自我肯定文章（研究 4 和 5）进行了汇报，这些影响也没有消除。长时间和广泛的个人汇报（研究 6）最有效地减轻了自我威胁的负面影响。后续评估显示，自我威胁的情感后果持续了 2 周甚至更长时间。内部元分析证实了这些结果，但也表明所有汇报版本，即使不完全有效，也至少在一定程度上减轻了自我威胁的影响。综上所述，这些发现说明了不同汇报程序的部分有效性，强调了精心设计实验后汇报以避免伦理问题的重要性，更广泛地指出了处理负面反馈和个人威胁的潜在有效方法。（APA 心理信息数据库记录（c）2019，保留所有权利）。
