feedbackfatigue

Feedbackfatigue is a term used to describe a reduced responsiveness to feedback after prolonged exposure to feedback messages. It occurs when recipients perceive feedback as overwhelming, repetitive, or unclear, leading to diminished motivation to act on suggestions and slower uptake of changes. The concept appears in organizational psychology, education, and user experience research as a warning that more feedback is not always better.

Common causes include high feedback volume with little time to process it, inconsistent criteria, and feedback that is vague, punitive, or not actionable. When feedback arrives through multiple channels or is delivered in a way that undermines psychological safety, recipients may become desensitized or defensive, which further reduces effectiveness.

Signs of feedbackfatigue include delayed responses to feedback, selective listening, reduced effort to implement suggestions, ignoring or arguing with feedback, and a general decline in engagement with learning or improvement processes. In teams, it can manifest as slower cycles of improvement, repeated mistakes, or higher turnover.

Impacts can be broad: learning stagnation, reduced performance gains, disengagement, and diminished innovation. In technical domains such as software development, it can contribute to code-review fatigue and longer development cycles if reviews are perceived as overwhelming rather than constructive.

Measurement and diagnosis rely on indicators such as uptake rate of feedback, time to implement changes, and surveys on perceived usefulness and workload. Mitigation strategies emphasize quality over quantity, clearer and actionable guidance, limiting nonessential feedback, fostering psychological safety, and structuring feedback cycles to align with specific goals and learning objectives.