Effect of Feedback on Interpersonal Sensitivity in Laboratory Training Groups

Abstract

The 69 participants in the 1966 Rocky Mountain Workshop in Group Development, sponsored by the Adult Education Council of Metropolitan Denver, served as subjects in the present investigation. The study was designed to determine whether an instrumented feedback procedure based on sociometric ratings would help the members of laboratory training groups increase their sensitivity to others. It was found that subjects in experimental groups who filled out sociometric questionnaires and received feedback on their mutual ratings showed a significantly greater increase in sensitivity during a three-day period than control subjects who were not exposed to the sociometric procedure. Subjects in # i and # 2 control groups who rated one another but who did not receive feedback did not show a significant increase in sensitivity between the beginning and the end of the workshop, regardless of a time control in the administration of the questionnaire.

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