Do men and women use feedback provided by their Decision Support Systems (DSS) differently

This study investigates the effect gender has on the use of computer-based feedback and the impact that this feedback has on mood. The decision making process of men and women are investigated via a laboratory experiment using a previously validated Decision Support System (DSS) and a commonly used and negatively framed feedback. Grounded in human-computer interaction theories highlighting the strong social component of computers and social feedback theories showing that men and women react to negative feedback differently, we argue that the commonly used outcome feedback in DSS studies will influence both the decision accuracy of male and female users and their moods differently. The results, which support our basic theoretical argument, indicate that outcome feedback (in particular the more negative outcome feedback) improved the decision accuracy of the female users compared to their male counterparts. The results also indicate that the outcome feedback affect the overall mood of men and women differently as well. The overall moods of the female subjects were significantly less positive before and after completing the task (receiving this commonly used negative form of feedback), the moods of the male subjects before and after completing the task (receiving the same negative feedback) did not change. These results not only extend prior DSS feedback studies but also highlight the need and provide support for examining gender differences in such investigations.