In a study by Crocker and colleagues (Crocker, Joekl, Testa & Major, 1991), African American college students completed a questionnaire about themselves and were told that a Caucasian student would evaluate their information either with knowledge about the participant's race or with no knowledge. When participants thought their race was unknown to the evaluator,
A) they disregarded all feedback information and instead asked the experimenter for feedback.
B) only negative feedback was influential, and positive feedback was ignored.
C) both positive and negative feedback influenced participants' self-esteem in predictable ways (i.e., positive feedback increased self-esteem and negative feedback decreased self-esteem).
D) positive feedback and negative feedback influenced participants' self-esteem in unpredictable ways (i.e., positive feedback decreased self-esteem and negative feedback was disregarded).

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

When participants believed their race was unknown to the evaluator, both positive and negative feedback influenced their self-esteem in predictable ways, where positive feedback led to an increase and negative feedback led to a decrease in self-esteem. This suggests that the knowledge of the evaluator being aware of their race might have affected how participants perceived and reacted to feedback.

In a Study by Crocker and Colleagues (Crocker, Joekl, Testa