We explore one possible factor contributing to the proverbial glass ceiling for women—manifestation of the backlash effect, defined as social repercussions received by women who violate the female gender-role norm, in performance feedback. Feedback phrasing may have consequences for employee commitment to the organization and intention to leave. The results of study 1, a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis of a sample of 400 written performance evaluations from two organizations, provide evidence of the backlash effect in the feedback language used in women's performance appraisals at all levels of the organizational hierarchy, not just for women in leadership roles as expected. The results of a self-report survey of 271 working adults (study 2) suggest differing sensitivity to the use of backlash-related words according to gender, unexpectedly pointing to lower sensitivity for women and evidence of shaping behaviors toward one's gender-role norm through positive feedback. Implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

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绩效反馈的反弹：加深对性别在绩效评估中的作用的理解

我们探讨了导致众所周知的女性玻璃天花板的一个可能因素 - 反弹效应的表现，定义为违反女性性别角色规范的女性在绩效反馈中受到的社会影响。反馈措辞可能会对员工对组织的承诺和离职意图产生影响。研究 1 的结果是对来自两个组织的 400 份书面绩效评估样本的混合定性和定量分析，提供了在组织层级的所有级别的女性绩效评估中使用的反馈语言的反弹效应的证据，而不仅仅是为了正如预期的那样，女性担任领导角色。对 271 名在职成年人（研究 2）进行的自我报告调查的结果表明，不同性别对使用与强烈反对相关的词的敏感性不同，出乎意料地指出女性的敏感性较低，并且有证据表明通过积极的反馈来塑造符合性别角色规范的行为。影响进行了讨论。