注意:每个空格只填一个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。
To keep the creative juices flowing, employees should be receptive to criticism
Researchers have been curious about whether negative feedback really makes people perform better, particularly when it comes to completing creative tasks. The literature has been mixed about this. In a recent investigation, Kim, who in May will join the Cambridge Judge Business School as an assistant professor, observed –– through a field experiment and a lab experiment –– and reported on how receiving negative feedback might impact the creativity of the recipients(接受者).
In both studies, Kim found that negative feedback can inspire or prevent creative thinking. What is most important is where the criticism comes from. When creative professionals or participants received criticism from a boss or a peer, they tended to be less creative in their subsequent work. Interestingly, if an individual received negative feedback from an employee of lower rank, they benefited from it and became more creative.
Some aspects of these findings seem intuitive(凭直觉的). “It makes sense that employees might feel threatened by criticism from their managers,” says Kim. “Supervisors have a lot of influence in deciding promotions or pay raises. So negative feedback from a boss might cause career anxieties.” It also stands to reason that feedback from a co-worker might also be received as threatening because we often compete with our peers for the same promotions and opportunities.
When we feel that pressure from above or from our peers, we tend to fixate on the stressful aspects of it and end up being less creative in our future work, says Kim.
What Kim found most surprising was how negative feedback from their followers (employees that they manage) made supervisors more creative.
“It’s a bit counterintuitive(反直觉的) because we tend to believe we shouldn’t criticize the boss,” says Kim. “In reality, most supervisors are willing to receive negative feedback and learn from it. It’s not that they enjoy criticism –– rather, they are in a natural power position and can cope with the discomfort of negative feedback better.”
The key takeaways: bosses and coworkers need to be more careful when they offer negative feedback to someone they manage or to their peers. And feedback recipients need to worry less when it comes to receiving criticism, says Kim.
“The tough part of being a manager is pointing out a follower’s poor performance or weak points. But it’s a necessary part of the job,” says Kim. “If you’re a supervisor, just be aware that your negative feedback can hurt your followers’ creativity. Followers tend to receive negative feedback personally. Therefore, keep your feedback specific to tasks. Explain how the point you’re discussing relates to only their task behavior, not to aspects of the person.”
In short, anyone who wants to offer negative feedback on the job should do so attentively and sensitively and to promote creativity at work, we should all be receptive to criticism from supervisors, peers and followers.
To keep the creative juices flowing, employees should be receptive to criticism | |
Introduction to the topic | Experiments are conducted to find out whether negative feedback |
Negative feedback can inspire or hold back creativity, | |
Criticism from a boss or a peer | |
Our work is greatly influenced by our supervisors, so their criticism might bring about anxieties. | |
We compete with our peers for the same opportunities, thus feeling | |
Supervisors are in a favourable | |
Enlightenment from the study | When offering criticism to followers or peers, bosses and coworkers need to keep it |
Recipients should adopt a positive | |
2 . If you had asked me then if I would accept a job as a restaurant critic for The New York Times. or any establishment publication, I would have replied, without a second thought, “Of course not!” And not just because I did not want to think of myself as an ambitious sort Working in restaurants was honest labor, anyone could see that. Writing about them for the mainstream press was not; it felt like joining the enemy.
But renewing was fun. so much fun that when mainstream publishers started paying me for my opinions, I didn't do the decent thing. Before I knew it, I had stopped cooking Professionally.
Then I stopped cooking altogether. “She's joined the leisure class.” my friend said.
I disarmed (消解怒气)) my critics by inviting them along; nobody I knew could afford to eat out and nobody refused. We went with equal amounts of guilt and pleasure, with a feeling that we were trespassing (侵入))on the playgrounds of the rich.
We didn't belong in starchy restaurants. We knew it, and when we climbed out of my rent - a - wreck, splendid in years from the Salvation Army, everybody else knew it, too. We always got the worst table. And then, because I didn't own a credit card, I had to pay in cash. The year turned into two and three, and more. I got a credit card. I got good clothes. I was writing for increasingly prestigious (声誉高的)publications. Meanwhile, a voice inside me kept whispering, “How could you?”
The voice is still there, yakking (喋喋不休)away. When I receive weekly letters from people who think it is indecent to write about $100 meals while half the world is hungry, the voice yaks right along, “They're absolutely right, you elitist pig is hisses”. And when it asks. “When are you going to grow up and get a real job?” it sounds a lot like my mother.
And just about then is when I tell the voice to shut up. Because when my mother starts idling me that all I'm doing with my life is telling rich people where to eat, I realize how much the world has changed.
Yes, there are still restaurants where rich people go to remind themselves that they are different from you and me. But there are fewer and fewer of them. As American food has come of age. American restaurants have changed. Going out to eat used to be like going to the opera; today, it is more like going to the movies.
And so everyone has become a critic. I couldn't be happier. The more people pay attention to what and how they eat, the more accustomed they become to their own senses and the world around them.
When I remember that conversation with M. F. K. Fisher, I wish I had not been quite so gentle. When I rerun the loop in my mind, I turn to her and say this: “No, you are wrong. A. J. Liebling had it right. All it really takes to be a restaurant critic is a good appetite.”
1. How did the author feel about the job as a restaurant critic at the very beginning?| A．She didn't think much of it |
| B．She was the ambitious one for it. |
| C．It was not suitable for a cook like her. |
| D．It was not easy to work for the mainstream press. |
| A．A strong desire to be invited to eat out like the rich. |
| B．A mixed feeling of guilt and pleasure about eating out. |
| C．A mixed feeling of guilt and pleasure going into private property. |
| D．A special treat to be able to go into private property for fun. |
| A．She stayed in the career as a cook for years. |
| B．She kept on writing as a restaurant critic for years. |
| C．It was years before she quit the career as a cook. |
| D．It was years before her application for a credit card got approved. |
| A．worthwhile | B．critical | C．unacceptable | D．imperfect |
| A．They have places for both the rich and the poor. |
| B．They have varieties of means for entertainment. |
| C．They have become too expensive to be available. |
| D．They have become affordable to common people, |
| A．The writer is getting tired of the job. |
| B．good appetite makes a good critic. |
| C．There is no need for restaurant critics at all. |
| D．Eating out is no longer a privilege the rich have. |
1. What does the woman want to find out?
| A．The suitable work for the man. |
| B．The information on building。 |
| C．The nearby workplace. |
| A．Buying and selling things. |
| B．Building and repairing things. |
| C．Repairing and collecting things. |
| A．Delivering newspapers. |
| B．Helping build a house. |
| C．Selling advertising space. |
| A．“Education”. | B．“Interests”. | C．“Experience”. |
内容包括：
1. 采访的对象；
2. 采访的原因；
3. 想提的问题。
注意：
1. 词数120左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 短文中不能出现与本人相关的信息；
4. 短文的标题已给出，不计入总词数。
A Famous Chinese I Would Like to Interview
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
