Australian Journal of Psychology 2012

doi:10.1111/j.1742-9536.2011.00048.x

Effects of immediacy of feedback on estimations and performance

Pablo Fajfar,1 Guillermo Campitelli,3 and Martin Labollita2

1
Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales, Universidad Abierta Interamericana and 2Facultad de Ciencias Economicas,
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and 3School of Psychology and Social Science, Edith Cowan
University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Abstract

We investigated the role of anticipation of feedback in performance and estimation about own performance. We submitted 155
participants to a test of verbal aptitude, and we requested them to give estimations of their own performance and the performance
of other participants. There were two treatments: immediate feedback and delayed feedback. Participants in the immediate-feedback
group were informed that they would receive feedback on their performance immediately after finishing the test, whereas
participants in the delayed-feedback group were informed that they would receive feedback a week after taking the test. The
immediate-feedback group performed better than the delayed-feedback group. Furthermore, the former underestimated their own
performance. On the other hand, participants on the delayed-feedback group made unbiased estimations. We present a mathematical
model based on construal-level theory, decision affect theory, temporal discounting, and Moore and Healy’s model of overestimation.
The model suggests that the source of differences in performance and in estimations of own performance is a construal of the feedback
situation that modifies the expected utility of the task.
ajpy_48 1..9

Key words: decision affect theory, immediate feedback, judgement, overconfidence, performance, temporal discounting

People make predictions and estimations of events every
day. We predict how long errands will take in order to plan
how many of them we can do in a day. We estimate the
freshness of a vegetable based on its colour. Of particular
interest are the estimations and predictions about ourselves:
How well did I do in a job interview? How successful will my
diet be? Will I be able to graduate? How successful would I
be in the future? How well did I do in the midterm exam?
Research have found that we are overoptimistic on these
types of judgement (e.g., Griffin & Tversky, 1992; Keren,
1997; Lichtenstein, Fischhoff, & Phillips, 1982; Moore &
Healy, 2008; Perloff, 1987; Weinstein, 1980; Yates, 1990).
Researchers have also found that estimations and predic-
tions about our own performance (henceforth, performance
judgements) depend, among other factors, on the temporal
distance between the performance judgement and the task
(e.g., Gilovich, Kerr, & Medvec, 1993), or the temporal dis-
tance between the performance judgement and the moment
in which feedback about performance (henceforth, perfor-
mance feedback) would be received (e.g., Shepperd, Grace,
Correspondence: Guillermo Campitelli, PhD, School of Psychology
and Social Science, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA 6027,
Australia. Email: g.campitelli@ecu.edu.au
Received 11 May 2011. Accepted for publication 8 December
2011.
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society
Cole, & Klein, 2005; Shepperd, Ouellette, & Fernandez,
1996).
Gilovich et al. (1993) showed that a group of students
overestimated their own performance in an exam when
their performance judgements were made in advance, and
that the overestimation significantly decreased when the
performance judgements were made immediately before
the exam. Shepperd et al. (1996) showed that students
overestimated their qualifications on a classroom exam a
month before taking the exam. However, they were more
accurate when they estimated their performance immedi-
ately after taking the exam. Interestingly, they underesti-
mated their performance when the estimation took place
3 days after taking the exam and seconds before receiving
performance feedback. Shepperd et al. (2005) showed
that participant’s knowledge of when they would receive
feedback about a test affected performance judgements
about that test. They asked participants to perform a verbal
reasoning analogies test. After taking this test, a group of
participants were told that they would receive immediate
feedback, and another group of participants were told that
they would receive feedback in 3 days. Participants in the
immediate-feedback group estimated their performance
accurately, and participants in the delayed-feedback group
overestimated their performance. Moreover, there was a
negative significant correlation between anxiety and over-
estimation (i.e., the more anxious the participants, the less
they overestimated).
2 P. Fajfar et al.
These studies suggest that feedback plays an important
role on performance judgements. Feedback could also play
an important role on performance itself. Indeed, research
onto the role of feedback on performance has been very
prolific, with several published meta-analyses (e.g., Kluger &
DeNisi, 1996) and reviews of meta-analyses (e.g., Hattie &
Timperley, 2007). A typical finding in this field of research is
that, in general, immediate performance feedback leads to
better learning than delayed performance feedback (e.g.,
Kulik & Kulik, 1988). There are diverse explanations for this
effect (e.g., feedback interventions lead to changes in locus
of attention; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996), but they all have in
common that they focus on how feedback interventions
about precedent trials affect performance in subsequent
trials. However, it is possible that performance on a trial is
not only influenced by the feedback received in previous
trials, but also by the expectation or anticipation of the
participants regarding the feedback that they will receive
after completing the present trial. That is, the expectation of
receiving immediate feedback may lead to a different effect
on performance than the expectation of receiving delayed
feedback.
These two lines of research investigate different aspects
about the timing of feedback: The first one is interested in
the role of feedback on performance judgements, the second
one in the role of feedback on performance. A simple change
in the methodology used in research onto the role of feed-
back on performance judgements could investigate how
anticipation of feedback could affect both performance and
performance judgements. Instead of informing the parti-
cipants about the timing of feedback after the task, this
information could be given before the task. Thus, this
information could potentially affect both performance in
the task and the subsequent performance judgement. Given
its important practical implications—for example, the fact
that a very simple intervention may improve performance
could be applied in educational settings and to improve
performance in psychological experiments, among other
interventions—it is surprising that this has only been
recently reported in a short article. Kettle and Häubl (2010)1
asked participants to make predictions about their future
performance in an oral presentation 15, 8, or 1 day before
the presentation. Before making their predictions, they were
informed about the day they would receive performance
feedback. This ranged from the same day of the presentation
to 17 days after the presentation. Kettle and Häubl found a
linear negative relationship between the delay of feedback
and performance. Contrarily, they found a positive relation-
ship between the delay of feedback and predicted per-
formance. That is, the participants who expected delayed
feedback were more optimistic and worse performers than
those who expected immediate feedback. Moreover, this
study replicated Gilovich et al. (1993) and Shepperd et al.
(1996) results that participants who made their predictions
in advance (15 days prior the presentation) were more opti-
mistic than those who predicted their performance the day
before the presentation.
OVERVIEW OF THE PRESENT STUDY
The present study extends Shepperd et al.’s (1996, 2005)
research onto the influence of timing of feedback on per-
formance judgements. The first aim of this study was to
replicate Shepperd et al.’s (1996, 2005) findings that the
temporal distance between a task and feedback affects per-
formance judgements. Sweeny, Carroll, and Shepperd
(2006) proposed a number of explanations of those find-
ings, some of which are applicable to the present study.
First, based on construal-level theory (CLT) (Trope &
Liberman, 2003), they proposed that people construe
distant events abstractly and that this construal focuses on
what people would like to happen. On the other hand,
near events are construed more concretely, and this con-
strual focuses on what is likely to happen. Second, when
the feedback situation is immediate, people often experi-
ence an increase in anxiety and may judge their per-
formance based on their current level of anxiety. Third, as
Shepperd and McNulty (2002) have shown, people feel
more disappointed when outcomes fall short of expecta-
tions than elated when outcomes exceed expectations.
When feedback is immediate, people may try to avoid dis-
appointment by shifting expectations downwards. Fourth,
people may adopt the strategy of defensive pessimism
(Norem & Cantor, 1986), which consists of feeling pessi-
mistic about a future outcome in order to mobilise energy
to avoid an undesired outcome.
Norem and Cantor (1986) suggested that adopting
defensive pessimism sometimes leads to increase in moti-
vation to work hard in order to avoid undesired outcomes.
If this is the case, the reduction of overconfidence observed
in conditions in which feedback is imminent might be
accompanied by an increase in performance. Since the
focus of previous studies has been performance judge-
ments, the effect of anticipation of feedback on perfor-
mance has not been measured until Kettle and Häubl’s
(2010) study. This leads to the second goal of the present
study. We investigated whether anticipating immediate
feedback leads to an increase in performance. The present
study is similar to that of Kettle and Häubl: They both
investigated the role of anticipation of feedback in perfor-
mance judgements and in performance itself. The main
difference between these studies is in the performance
judgement measure. While Kettle and Häubl used predic-
tions about future performance, we used estimations about
previous performance.
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society

METHOD
Participants
One hundred and fifty-five students (72 females) of Eco-
nomics and Social Sciences from the Universidad of Buenos
Aires, Universidad Católica Argentina, and Universidad
Abierta Interamericana participated in the study. Students
were recruited by advertisements in web pages of these
universities. The experimental sessions were carried out at a
laboratory of the Facultad de Ciencias Economicas, Univer-
sidad de Buenos Aires.
Material
Participants were submitted to the BAIRES test of verbal
aptitude (Cortada de Kohan, 2003). This test contains 34
multiple choice items with one correct option and three
incorrect options per item. The first 17 items present a noun
and four options of possible definitions. The 17 remaining
items present a noun and four options of possible synonyms.
Procedure
Participants were randomly allocated to two treatments:
immediate feedback (79 participants; Mage = 22.2, SD = 4.28;
35 male) and delayed feedback (76 participants; Mage =
24.81, SD = 4.9; 49 male). In both treatments, we requested
the participants to choose an option in each of the 34
BAIRES items and to indicate, after they finished the whole
test, the number of items they believed they answered cor-
rectly, to estimate the number of correct answers that the
other participants of this study answered correctly, on
average, and to indicate how difficult the test was for them.
For every correct item, participants were paid $1, without
discounting any monetary value for the incorrect items.
Before starting the BAIRES test, we informed the partici-
pants of both groups that they would receive the money
they earned a week after the experiment was carried out. We
also informed the participants in the immediate-feedback
group that they would receive feedback on the number of
correct items immediately after finishing the test. On the
other hand, participants in the delayed feedback treatment
were informed that they would receive feedback on the
number of correct items a week after the experiment.
Variables
The dependent variables were performance, estimation (own),
estimation (others), difficulty, bias, and social comparison. Perfor-
mance was measured as the number of correct items. Estima-
tion (own) was measured as the participant’s estimations on
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society
Immediacy of feedback and estimations 3
how many correct items they had answered correctly.
Estimation (others) was measured as the estimation of the
number of correct items that other participants of the experi-
ment responded correctly, on average. Difficulty was mea-
sured as the reported difficulty of the test on a scale from 1
to 10. Bias was calculated as the difference between estima-
tion on own performance and actual performance in each
participant. Positive bias values were considered overconfi-
dent estimations, 0 values were considered unbiased estima-
tions, and negative values were considered under-confident
estimations. (Note that in other studies, overconfidence was
called ‘optimism’, unbiased estimations were called ‘realis-
tic’, and underconfidence was called ‘pessimism’). Social
comparison was calculated as the difference between estima-
tion of own performance and estimation of performance of
others in each participant. Positive values indicate that the
participants believed that they performed better than the
average of other participants, and negative values indicate
that the participants believed they performed worse than the
average of other participants.
RESULTS
We present here the results in proportions for all the vari-
ables, except for difficulty. However, when we fitted the
mathematical model to the data (see below), we used abso-
lute values. Performance in the verbal aptitude test was
significantly higher in the immediate-feedback group
(M = 0.66, SD = 0.11) than in the delayed-feedback group
(M = 0.61, SD = 0.13) (t (153) = 2.96, p = .003, Cohen’s
d = 0.48) (see Table 1 and Fig. 1). There were no significant
differences between treatments in the estimation of own
performance (immediate feedback, M = 0.57, SD = 0.12;
delayed feedback, M = 0.60, SD = 0.15; t (153) = 1.55,
p = .123, Cohen’s d = 0.26) and in the estimation of per-
formance of other participants (immediate feedback,
M = 0.60, SD = 0.12; delayed feedback, M = 0.61, SD = 0.13;
t (153) = 0.21, p = .835, Cohen’s d = 0.03). (Note that in
estimation of own performance, the assumption of equality
of variance was not met; however, a similar result was
obtained with the Welch t-test that does not assume equality
of variance). This result indicates that participants in the
immediate-feedback group performed better than those on
the delayed-feedback group, and they made similar estima-
tions on their performance; consequently, they underesti-
mated their own performance. This was corroborated with a
related-samples t-test comparing the actual performance and
the estimated performance in the immediate-feedback group
(t (78) = 7.27; p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.83). The difference
between actual and estimated performance was not signifi-
cant in the delayed-feedback group (t (75) = 0.2; p = .84,
Cohen’s d = 0.02). This is also apparent in the values of bias.
4 P. Fajfar et al.

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and comparisons between the immediate-feedback group and the delayed-feedback group
Immediate Delayed Comparison
feedback feedback immediate-delayed
Performance 0.66 (0.11) 0.61 (0.13) t (153) = 2.96; p = .003
Estimation (own) 0.57 (0.12) 0.60 (0.15) t (153) = 1.55; p = .123
Bias -0.09 (0.11) -0.00 (0.12) t (153) = 4.82; p < .001
Difficulty 6.30 (1.25) 6.05 (1.44) t (153) = 1.15; p = .250
Estimation (others) 0.60 (0.12) 0.61 (0.13) t (153) = 0.21; p = .835
Social comparison -0.04 (0.12) -0.01 (0.15) t (153) = 1.34; p = .183
Note. Means and standard deviations (in brackets) for the immediate and delayed-feedback treatments. The scale used in difficulty was 1–10; average
proportion of correct answers is reported in all the other variables.

Figure 1 Proportion of correct items as a

function of task. Performance is the actual
proportion of correct answers, Estimation
(own) and Estimation (others) is the pro-
portion of correct answers estimated by
participants on their own performance
and on the performance of others, respec-
tively. Error bars show standard errors.

The immediate-feedback group estimated, on average, that
they answered correctly 9.1% items less than the actual
percentage of correct items (M = -0.09, SD = 0.11), whereas
the delayed-feedback group was, on average, unbiased
(M = -0.00, SD = 0.12). The difference in bias values
between treatments was significant (t (153) = 4.82, p < .001,
Cohen’s d = 0.77). Therefore, the immediate-feedback group
was, on average, underconfident, and the delayed-feedback
group was, on average, unbiased.
The number and percentage of overconfident, unbiased,
and underconfident participants in each group were 11
(14%), 8 (10%), and 60 (76%), respectively, in the
immediate-feedback group; and 35 (46%), 7 (9%), and 34
(45%), respectively, in the delayed-feedback group. As the
average age of the immediate-feedback group was lower
than that of the delayed-feedback group, and there were
relatively more female in the former than in the latter, these
results may be accounted for by the variables age or gender,
and not by the treatments. In order to rule out this possi-
bility, we run correlational analyses between age and gender,
and performance and estimation (own) in the whole sample.
None of these correlations was significant: performance-
gender (male 1 – female 0), r (153) = 0.13, p = .109;
performance-age, r (153) = 0.14, p = .073; estimation (own)-
gender, r (153) = 0.08, p = .328; estimation (own)-age,
r (153) = 0.14, p = .078. Even if the correlations were signifi-
cant, this would not affect our conclusions. In this sample,
men and older people tended to perform better and to give
higher estimations than women and younger people. As the
immediate-feedback group had more women and younger
participants, the higher performance in this group could not
be explained by age or gender.
There were no significant differences between groups in
perceived difficulty (see Table 1). In the immediate-feedback
group, there was a worse-than-average effect (see Moore,
2007; Moore & Small, 2007 for an explanation of this
effect). That is, participants in this group estimated that their
performance was worse than the performance of other par-
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society

ticipants (comparison estimation (own) vs estimation
(others) in the immediate-feedback group: t (78) = 2.59;
p = .012, Cohen’s d = 0.30). The comparison between esti-
mation of own performance and performance of others was
not significant in the delayed-feedback group (t (75) = 0.33;
p = .74, Cohen’s d = 0.04). On average, the social compari-
son in the immediate-feedback group was -0.04, whereas
the social comparison in the delayed-feedback group was
almost zero (-0.01). The number (and percentage) of par-
ticipants with positive, zero, and negative values in social
comparison in each group were 23 (29%), 14 (18%), and 42
(53%), respectively, in the immediate-feedback group;
and 37 (49%), 5 (6%), and 34 (45%), respectively, in the
delayed-feedback group.
Summing up, the participants in the immediate-feedback
group performed better than those in the delayed-feedback
group, they underestimated their own performance, and
they believed that other participants performed better than
them. On the other hand, participants in the delayed-
feedback group were unbiased on their estimations, and
they considered that the performance of others was similar
to their own performance.
DISCUSSION
Two main results were found in this study. First, a group of
participants who were informed that they would receive
immediate performance feedback had a better performance
than a group of participants who were informed that they
would receive performance feedback a week after the task.
Second, the former underestimated its performance, whereas
the latter showed no bias in its performance judgement. The
first result replicates a novel finding. Kettle and Häubl (2010)
informed students that (and when) they would receive feed-
back in an oral presentation before the presentation. The
temporal distance between the presentation and feedback
varied from 0 to 17 days. They found that the student’s
performance in the oral presentation was negatively related
to the temporal distance between the presentation and feed-
back. This result is also in accordance with the finding that, in
the majority of cases, immediate feedback leads to better
learning than delayed feedback (e.g., Kulik & Kulik, 1988).
The second result accords with previous studies on the
role of anticipation of feedback in performance judgements
(i.e., Shepperd et al., 1996, 2005). We presented earlier a
number of factors that Sweeny et al. (2006) indicated as
candidates to explain this effect. One of these factors, defen-
sive pessimism (Norem & Cantor, 1986), suggests that as
feedback draws near, people tend to adopt pessimism about
their performance. One of the possible effects of this strategy
is that people mobilise energy to work hard and avoid nega-
tive feedback. We hypothesised that, if this is the case, we
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society
Immediacy of feedback and estimations 5
should find a reduction of overconfidence and an increase
in performance in the immediate-feedback condition. Our
results support this hypothesis.
Another interesting result of our study is the significant
worse-than-average effect (see Moore & Small, 2007 for an
explanation) in the immediate-feedback group. Participants
in this group estimated that their performance was worse
than that of the other participants. Moore (2007) presented
a model in which estimation on our own performance
and estimation of performance of others are related. He
suggested that when overconfidence is observed, worse-
than-average effect is expected, and when under-confidence
is observed, better-than-average effect is expected. This is
partly explained by Gigerenzer, Hoffrage, and Kleinbölting’s
(1991) proposal that performance is a variable phenomenon
that changes according to task characteristics, whereas esti-
mation on own performance is less variable: It is not only
influenced by current performance but also by previous
performance in similar tasks. This is what happened in our
study: There were no differences in estimations of own per-
formance between treatments even though there were dif-
ferences in actual performance. Moore suggested that, given
that we have less information for estimating performance of
others, our estimation of others’ performance is more regres-
sive to the previous experience to similar tasks. That is, we
evaluate the performance of others based on our prior expe-
rience with similar tasks, and our current performance does
not affect this estimation. Our experimental manipulation
had the opposite effect: We found underconfidence and
worse-than-average effect in the immediate-feedback group
that performed better than the delayed-feedback group. A
possible explanation of this result is that the anticipation of
immediacy of feedback affects only the estimation of our
own performance because we are not expected to know how
other people perform, but we are expected to know how we
perform. Another possible explanation of differences with
Moore’s study is methodological: We asked participants to
estimate the average performance of other participants of
the experiments, and Moore asked his participants to
estimate the performance of a random participant.
We now propose an explanation of present results based
on four approaches: CLT (Trope & Liberman, 2003), decision
affect theory (Mellers, Schwartz, Ho, & Ritov, 1997; Mellers,
Schwartz, & Ritov, 1999), temporal discounting (e.g., Berns,
Laibson, & Loewenstein, 2007), and Moore and Healy’s
(2008) model of overestimation. We also present a simple
mathematical model that integrates the results. Note,
however, that this model was developed after knowing the
results, hence our conclusions should be considered with
caution. The purpose of developing this model was to
formalise our account of the results and to guide future
research onto the nature and boundary conditions of the
novel finding reported here.
6 P. Fajfar et al.
Anticipation of affect and temporal discounting:
An explanation and a mathematical model
Like Sweeny et al. (2006), we suggest that the effects of
anticipation of feedback are partly explained by a difference
in the construal of the feedback situation. CLT (Trope &
Liberman, 2003) proposes that people construe concrete and
contextualised models of near-future events, and abstract
and decontextualised models of distant-future events. In the
present study, participants on the immediate-feedback group
may have construed a more concrete representation of the
feedback situation than that of the delayed-feedback group.
This difference in representation of the feedback situation
may have led to a difference in the subjective expected
benefit of carrying out the task. We refer to this as the
expected utility of the task (EUT). In order to formalise the
difference in representation, we use the concept of temporal
discounting. This concept refers to the fact that the utility of
events (e.g., receiving money) varies as a function of time.
For example, receiving $10 now is considered to have more
utility than receiving the same amount a week later. Equally,
losing $10 is considered to have a more negative utility than
that of losing $10 a week later. In our study, the temporal
discount of the monetary reward should not have differed
between groups because all the participants were informed
that they would receive the monetary reward a week after
the experiment. We propose that the difference in represen-
tation between groups arose from the representation of the
feedback situation. Given that the performance feedback
was expected to be received at different times in each group,
the expected benefit or displeasure of the feedback situation
differed between groups. We formalise these hypotheses
as follows:
EUT = X × δ + f ( l ) × γ , (1)
where the EUT equals the sum of the product of the
expected score (X) and the discount rate of the monetary
reward (d), and the product of the utility of feedback func-
tion (f(l)) and the temporal discount rate of feedback (g)
which, unlike d, varies between groups. This formula con-
tains aspects of temporal discounting and aspects of Moore
and Healy’s (2008) model of overconfidence. These authors
proposed that just before performing a task, people form a
belief about the score they would obtain in this task. This
belief is composed of the average global score and the varia-
tion of the individual’s scores from the global score (i.e.,
Xi = S + Li, where Xi represents the person i’s prior belief on
his/her performance in the task, S represents the average
global score in the task, and Li represents the individual’s
belief on how much his/her score would deviate from the
global score). In the first part of equation 1, no differences
between groups are expected because the temporal discount
rate of the monetary reward is the same in both groups and,
given the random allocation of the participants to the
groups, differences in prior beliefs are unlikely.
The second part of the equation differentiate between
groups because the rate of temporal discount of feedback
differs between groups (i.e., 0 < gd < 1 in the delayed-
feedback group, and gi = 1 in the immediate-feedback
group). This discount rate modifies the utility of feedback
function (f(l)) by making it less extreme in the delayed-
feedback group. This function is related to the expected
performance because in the present study, expecting to
obtain a certain score implies expecting to receive a certain
feedback. We define the utility of feedback function as
follows:
if Li ≥ 0
⎪⎧ Li ,
kp
f (l ) = ⎨ kn
(2)
⎪⎩− Li , if Li < 0,
where 1 < kp < kn are free parameters. This formula indi-
cates that expecting to perform above the global average (S)
(i.e., Li > 0) increases utility, and expecting to perform below
the global average (i.e., Li < 0) decreases utility. Moreover, it
is assumed that kn > kp, thus the increase in utility due to
expecting to perform a unit higher than average is lower
than the decrease in utility due to expecting to perform a
unit lower than average. This assumption is based on the
decision affect theory and is in line with prospect theory
(Tversky & Kahneman, 1979), which proposes that people
take more risks to avoid losses than risks to obtain gains (i.e.,
loss aversion). Therefore, the EUT will be higher for partici-
pants who expect to perform above average than for the
participants who expect to perform below average. Given
that the delayed-feedback group temporally discounts the
utility of feedback, their EUT is lower than that of the
immediate-feedback group for participants who expect to
perform above average, and higher for participants who
expect to perform below average.
Given that the EUT is more extreme in the immediate-
feedback group, the participants in this group had more
motivation to perform above average and to avoid perform-
ing below average than those in the delayed-feedback group.
As suggested by Norem and Cantor (1986), this may have
affected the energy mobilised to perform the task. We for-
malise this as
Ĝ = T × M (3)
where the predicted performance in the task (Ĝ) in the
delayed-feedback group equals the product of average per-
formance in similar tasks in the past (T) and the improve-
ment of performance due to motivation (M). M = 1 in the
delayed-feedback group and M = 1/gd in the immediate-
feedback group. As 0 < gd < 1, this equation indicates that
the immediate-feedback group performs higher than the
delayed-feedback group due to the increase in performance
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society

caused by motivation, and that this is explained by the rate
of temporal discounting of feedback.
The change in the EUT produces another effect: The par-
ticipants in the immediate-feedback group take into account
the anticipation of the feedback situation in their perfor-
mance judgements. This leads to an adjustment on their
performance judgements to avoid the disappointment that
could arise if they give a performance judgement that is
higher than the performance feedback they would receive
immediately. This is in line with Sweeny et al.’s (2006) pro-
posal that people shift their expectations downwards to
avoid disappointment, and with Norem and Cantor’s (1986)
concept of defensive pessimism. We formalise this by
Jˆ = d ( y ) × α + Y × (1 − α ) , (4)
where the predicted performance judgement (Ĵ) equals the
weighted sum of the anticipated disappointment (d(y)) and
the belief about performance generated immediately after
performing the task (Y), and a (0 2 a 2 1) is the relative
weight given to the feedback situation. Y was proposed by
Moore and Healy (2008), and corresponds to an internal
signal or ‘gut feeling’ about our own performance that we
get after performing a task. For simplicity, we also follow
their proposal that this signal is, on average, unbiased;
however, releasing this constraint does not change our con-
clusions. The interpretation of the anticipation of feedback
(d(y)) is given with the following example. After performing
a task, a participant has the gut feeling (Y) that he/she
answered 25 questions correctly. Because he/she knows that
this signal is not perfect, he/she would tend to adjust his/her
performance judgement to avoid the disappointment of
receiving a feedback lower than the judgement. Thus,
instead of solely using his/her internal signal to make a
performance judgement, he/she also considers the possible
disappointment (d(y)) that using his/her internal signal y
as a performance judgement could generate. This possible
disappointment is represented as
d ( y) = {[(Σq (h, y)) / N ] } γ ,
1/ kn
(5)
where N is the number of all the possible feedback (i.e.,
N = 35) and
⎧⎪ ( hj − ym )kp, if hj − ym ≥ 0
q ( h, y ) = ⎨ (6)
⎪⎩− ( hj − ym ) , if hj − ym < 0,
kn
where q(h,y) is the function that relates each possible judge-
ment that could be made using all the possible internal signals
y (where m = 0 to 34) and all the possible feedback to be
received h (where j = 0 to 34). Following decision affect
theory, if the feedback is higher than the performance judge-
ment, there would be elation (or an increase in utility), and if
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society
Immediacy of feedback and estimations 7
the feedback is lower than the performance judgement, there
would be disappointment (or decrease in utility). Equation 5
indicates that the anticipated disappointment given the inter-
nal signal y is the summation of all the possible instances of
disappointment or elation that could occur if one uses y as a
performance judgement. For example, using the internal
signal y = 25 could lead to 24 instances of disappointment
(i.e., if the actual performance, and therefore the perfor-
mance feedback, is between 0 and 24), one neutral instance
(if performance equals 25), and nine possible instances
elation (i.e., if the actual performance is between 26 and 34).
Put simply, giving high performance judgements has a higher
probability of disappointment and a lower probability of
elation, and the reverse is true for low performance judge-
ments. Equation 5 also indicates that this function varies
between groups because of the rate of temporal discounting
of feedback. Returning to equation 4, we hypothesised above
that the participants in the immediate-feedback group took
into consideration the feedback situation when they were
making their performance judgements to a higher extent
than the delayed-feedback group. This means that a should
be higher in the immediate-feedback group.
Given that the purpose of developing the model was to
formalise hypotheses rather than testing them, we only fit
the model to the data at the group level. We first solved
equation 3. It was assumed that the average performance in
similar tasks in the past for the whole sample (T) was the
same as the average actual performance in the delayed-
feedback group in the present task, thus T = 20.58. As the
participants were randomly allocated to groups, we assumed
that T was the same in both groups. Given that the
immediate-feedback group received feedback immediately
after the task, their temporal discount rate of feedback was 1.
We calculated gd by fitting the model to the average value
of performance in each group. The obtained value was
gd = 0.916.
We then fitted equation 4 to the performance judgement
data at the group level using Microsoft Excel’s Solver. Before
doing this, we solved equations 5 and 6 without free para-
meters by assuming, following Moore and Healy (2008),
that the internal signal about performance was accurate,
on average (i.e., internal signal in the immediate-feedback
group yi = 22.47, internal signal in the delayed-feedback
group yd = 20.58).We fixed the kp and kn values based on
McGraw, Mellers, and Ritov (2004) results: kp was fixed on
1.34 and kn on 1.48. We used the discount rate gd = 0.916
obtained in equation 3 and we also used gi = 1. The obtained
anticipated disappointment values d(y) were -8.38 and
-6.04 for the immediate-feedback group and the delayed-
feedback group, respectively. This indicates that the antici-
pated disappointment of making a performance judgement
that corresponds to the internal signal (y) is higher in the
immediate-feedback group. The only free parameters were a
8 P. Fajfar et al.

Table 2 Fitted, obtained, or assumed values of variables or para-
meters in the mathematical model
Immediate-feedback Delayed-feedback
Parameters group group
X=T 20.58 20.58
d 0.916 0.916
g 1 0.916
P = Ĝ = Y 22.47 20.58
d(y) -8.38 -6.04
a 0.101 0.003
J = Ĵ 19.34 20.49
kp 1.34 1.34
kn 1.48 1.48
Note. X is the expected outcome, T is the average performance in
similar tasks in the past, d is the temporal discount rate of the monetary
value, g is the temporal discount rate of the feedback situation, P is the
actual performance, Ĝ is the predicted performance, Y is the internal
signal about performance generated immediately after finishing the task,
d(y) is the anticipated affect of giving a performance judgement that
corresponds to y, a is the weight given to d(y) in the performance
judgement, J is the actual performance judgement, Ĵ is the predicted
performance judgement, and kp and kn are the exponents that corre-
spond to positive and negative values, respectively, in the f(l) and q(h,y)
functions.
for each group. The model fitted the data perfectly with
ai = 0.101 and ad = 0.003. Table 2 shows the values of all the
parameters for each group. This result supports the hypoth-
esis that the participants in the immediate-feedback group
paid relatively more attention to the possible disappointment
in the feedback situation.
Limitations
This model has a number of limitations. First, the goal of
developing the model was to give an explicit account of the
results and to guide future investigation, thus the experi-
ment was not designed to test the model. Second, given the
descriptive nature of the model, we did not fit the model to
the individual data. Third, we made some assumptions based
on previous research, but other assumptions are probably
too simplistic. Fourth, we chose a task in which an increase
in motivation could lead to performance improvement.
Although the increase in performance due to motivation is
possible in many tasks, it does not apply to all types of tasks.
That is, increase in motivation does not always improve
performance. These limitations should be considered in
the context of the advantages of developing a mathematical
model to explain these results. First, no formal explanation
of this effect has been proposed earlier, and second, this
model could be used to derive experimental hypothesis in
future research.
CONCLUSIONS
Sweeny et al. (2006) proposed a number of explanations for
the effect of immediate feedback on performance judge-
ments, some of which are applicable to the present study:
different construal of feedback situation, increase in anxiety,
avoidance of disappointment, and defensive pessimism.
Norem and Cantor (1986) suggested that the strategy of
defensive pessimism may lead to mobilise energy to work
hard in order to avoid an undesired outcome. We suggested
that, if this suggestion is correct, it would be possible to find
pessimism (i.e., underconfidence) and increase in per-
formance due to anticipation of immediate feedback. Our
results support this hypothesis. We incorporated this expla-
nation and two of the other three explanations into a math-
ematical model that accounts for the effects of anticipation of
feedback on performance and performance judgement. We
did not incorporate the anxiety explanation because we did
not measure anxiety in our experiment.
The model suggests that the source of both performance
improvement and underconfidence in the immediate-
feedback group is a representation of the feedback situa-
tion that affected the EUT. This utility was higher in the
immediate-feedback group in comparison to the delayed-
feedback group in situations in which performance feedback
is higher than expected performance, and lower in situations
in which performance feedback is lower than expected per-
formance. This is because the immediate-feedback group
discounted the pleasure of the monetary reward but not the
elation/disappointment of the feedback situation, whereas
the delayed-feedback group discounted both. This had
two effects: First, the participants in the immediate-feedback
group were more motivated to perform the task, and second,
when they had to make a performance judgement, they
paid relatively more attention to the anticipation of feed-
back. This lead to adjusting their performance judgements
downwards.
Being aware of the limitations of this study, we suggest
that our results have theoretical and practical implications.
From the theoretical standpoint, we extended decision affect
theory (Mellers et al., 1997, 1999) to anticipation of feed-
back. This theory indicates that the pleasure obtained by an
outcome is a function of the prior expected outcome and the
actual outcome. We proposed that people also anticipate the
pleasure or utility of carrying out a task. We used aspects of
decision affect theory together with the concept of temporal
discounting, Moore and Healy’s (2008) model of overconfi-
dence, and Trope and Liberman’s (2003) CLT to formalise
this proposal. Our results also contribute to the field of
research onto the effect of timing of feedback on per-
formance. We proposed that anticipation of feedback
could partly explain the improvement of performance in
immediate-feedback conditions.
The practical implication is that informing on the timing
of feedback before participating in a task could cause very
important effects: performance improvement and undercon-
fidence. This is relevant for educational settings. Although
© 2012 The Australian Psychological Society

future research is needed to investigate the nature and the
boundary conditions of this effect, psychologists may find
useful to inform their participants that they would receive
immediate feedback.
NOTE
1. We carried out the experiment before Kettle and Häubl’s
(2010) article was published; thus, our hypothesis was
elaborated independently from those in this study.
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