MediaSpace Wiki

Small Group Spring2006 Session27

Announcement

Lambda Pi Eta, the National Communications Honor Society, is sponsoring a Communications Community Networking Night on Thursday, May 11 at 6:00PM in Lanigan 104. Free Pizza. Real dirt on the professors in the department.

Feedback in small groups

• Feedback is an one of the more important constructs in communication
  • It is also sometimes a confusing concept
    • In part because the term comes from the study of biological systems
      • Cybernetics
      • In which it is applied metaphorically to physical systems
    • In part because our use is a metaphoric application of the Cybernetic approach to social systems
  • Somehow things get lost in the translation
• There are four generally used descriptions of positive and negative feedback
  • First, feedback as difference between expectation and performance
    • The most commonly used variant

"Feedback is the message, from a sensor of a system to the controller of the system, of the difference between expectation and performance. Negative feedback in a system attenuates. Positive feedback amplifies."

http://www.matttaylor.com/public/feedback_positive.htm

• Negative feedback
  • Performance differs from expectation
  • Results in corrective action.
• Positive feedback
  • Performance matches expectation.
  • If necessary, terminates previous corrective action
  • Otherwise no action
• Examples
  • Toilet
  • Cruise Bullet
• Risks
  • In physical systems, deviation amplification
    • Every feedback decision is made within criteria
    • Make the criteria too wide and problematic behavior is reinforced
    • Make the criteria too narrow and you get escalating behavior swings
• Deviation amplification is the result of inadequate sensors, logic, or effectors
  • Can be prevented with good design
• Second, feedback as stabilizing and destabilizing

"Negative feedback or deviation reducing feedback decreases the input and is inherently stabilizing. ... Positive feedback or deviation amplifying feedback increases the input and is inherently destabilizing, explosive or vicious."

Klaus Krippendorf (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/FEEDBACK.html)

• Here positive feedback is seen as being unnecessarily destabilizing
  • Deviation amplification is an inevitable result of positive feedback that is unchecked by negative feedback
• Examples:
  • Growth scenarios (city, product, etc) where success attracts more people/activity
    • The effect of Walmart on its town
    • The effect of iPod success on its aftermarket
  • Nuclear fission
  • Proliferation of cancer cells
• A common view of positive feedback
  • great marketing that encourages better controls
  • appealingly counterintuitive
• It is, for what its worth, the definition this chapter goes with early on
  • But it remains questionable whether deviation amplification necessarily follows from positive feedback

• Third, feedback as changes in system state

"In every feedback loop ... information about the result of a transformation or an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form of input data. If these new data facilitate and accelerate the transformation in the same direction as the preceding results, they are positive feedback - their effects are cumulative. If the new data produce a result in the opposite direction to previous results, they are negative feedback - their effects stabilize the system. In the first case there is exponential growth or decline; in the second there is maintenance of the equilibrium."

J. de Rosnay (http://www.cite-sciences.fr/derosnay/e-index.html)

• falls somewhere between the first two
• positive feedback facilitate change in the same direction as the preceding results
• Negative feedback facilitates a change in direction
• Deviation amplification loops are the result of allowing growth to become the expected state
• Examples:
  • The toilet

• Fourth, feedback as good news (positive) and bad news (negative)
  • A commonplace conception of positive and negative feedback
    • Positive feedback equals "good news" or ass-kissing
    • Negative feedback equals "bad news" or free speech
  • This is essentially wrong
    • There is a strong correlation between
      • good news and positive feedback (by variant)
        1. Can cause us to rest on our laurals briefly
        2. Can cause us to redouble our efforts
        3. Urges us to keep doing what we're doing
      • bad news and negative feedback
        1. Can incent us to try harder
        2. stop going down an unproductive path
        3. Provides an incentive to change course
    • Good news can be negative feedback if it causes us to change directions
      • as in an opportunity arises
    • Bad news can be positive feedback if it causes us to keep going in the same direction
      • as in you can't win so why try
    • But in social situations, feedback is filtered by its recipient
      • We perceive feedback in the context of
        • Source issues
          • Trustworthiness
          • Power and Status
          • Style
        • Message issues
          • Content
          • Timing
          • Medium/channel
        • Recipient Issues
          • Self-esteem
          • Social anxiety
          • Mind set
          • Goals
          • Normal patterns of attribution
• This matters to groups because groups have goals
  • Negative feedback can help get a group on track
    • But it can also be perceived as attacking or undermining
  • Positive feedback can help keep a group on track
    • But only if the group actually stays on track
• Effective feedback needs to be
  • Direct
  • Specific
  • Focused on issues rather than people
  • Supported by evidence
• Negative feedback works best, for people
  • When it is surrounded by positive feedback