While existing feedback research mainly focuses on how to give feedback effectively, there are limited implications for feedback recipients regarding what they can do to benefit from others’ feedback, especially negative feedback. Drawing upon the literature of personal resources and feedback intervention theory, we identified learning something new and acquiring mindfulness states as two actionable strategies that can generate different types of resources, thus having divergent roles in facilitating recipients to work harder and work smarter. Two event-contingent studies were conducted. Study 1 of 201 academics’ review feedback-receiving events found that mindfulness negatively affects academics’ post-feedback procrastination, and negative review feedback amplifies the positive impact of mindfulness on creativity. Interestingly, negative feedback weakens the negative impact of learning activities on procrastination. Study 2 of 557 performance review events found that learning activities can activate both task and meta processes of employees, whereas mindfulness only activates task processes while inhibiting meta processes. Thus, learning and mindfulness have different impacts on procrastination and creativity. Negative feedback amplifies the indirect effects of learning activities on two outcomes via both task and meta processes. This research contributes to the feedback literature by identifying the actionable feedback-receiving strategies and revealing the divergent mechanisms underlying different strategies.
