Race of employment interviewer and reasons given by black job seekers for leaving their jobs.

Compared the job-leaving reasons given by 40 black job seekers to black and white female employment interviewers at a state employment service. Black interviewers elicited more reasons that involved a rejection of the job by the worker or a rejection of the worker by the employer than did white interviewers. Because job-leaving reasons are often viewed by state employment service interviewers as part of a job seeker's credentials, it is possible that interviewer decisions are influenced by this racial artifact of the interviewing situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of information order and frequency of applicant evaluation upon linear information-processing competence of interviewers.

32 experienced employment interviewers provided evaluations of a hypothetical job applicant. The frequency with which the applicant was evaluated during information acquisition and the interviewer's degree of control over the order of information input were manipulated. It was found that interviewers who received information in a random order processed that information more competently than did those who chose the informational order. (Competence reflected agreement between actual and predicted evaluations, the latter a linear combination criterion.) Furthermore, those interviewers who chose the informational order sought the most important information early in the sequence, desired to terminate input sooner, and were quicker to recall characteristics which had been encountered at the beginning of the sequence. Frequency of evaluation had no measurable effects upon interviewer information processing competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Policy capturing in the employment interview.

Employed an information-processing perspective to analyze the judgments of individual employment interviewers in a corporate setting. Linear policy-capturing equations were estimated from 3 interviewers' ratings of 120 job applicants in live and audiotaped interviews. The equations were evaluated across interviewers to identify sources of predictive validity and consistency in information use. In competition with the interviewers from whom they were derived, regression models displayed higher predictive validities in a majority of instances. Following training on selected rating dimensions, interviewers' predictive validities improved. After interviewer training, the regression models of the training dimensions yielded higher predictive validities than all 3 interviewers. Results suggest specific directions for enhancing the effectiveness of interviewing in the employee-selection process. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The college student as interviewer: A threat to generalizability?

A review of 6 studies which compared decision-making processes of employment interviewers and college students to examine the generalizability of research conclusions based on college student samples showed that relative to interviewers, students are lenient in their ratings. No other important differences have been reported, and findings appear to be quite comparable with respect to variances, intercorrelations, interrater agreement, and main effects for decision process, content, and accuracy. It is concluded that generalizability should never be merely assumed, but rather demonstrated empirically in other research areas, following the example of the studies involving interview decision-making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consulting the application form prior to the interview: An essential step in the selection process.

Conducted a field experiment to determine whether consulting the application form prior to an employment interview delays the formation of early impressions and allows more information to be considered before an initial decision is made by the interviewer. 28 experienced recruiters interviewed a role-playing applicant for a hypothetical job opening. Half of these interviewers were provided with application forms prior to the interview, and half were not. Each interview was terminated at the initial decision point, and measures (a 20-item questionnaire and an accept–reject scale) were administered to determine both the quantity and quality of information the interviewers possessed at that point. Results suggest that preventing the interviewer from consulting the application form prior to the interview has no effect on initial decision times, nor does it reduce the interviewer's confidence in that decision. Furthermore, when the initial decision is made, it is based on less complete information about the applicant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confirming first impressions in the employment interview: A field study of interviewer behavior.

Examined behavioral styles used by interviewers to confirm their 1st impressions of job applicants. Three interviewers in a corporate setting formed 1st impressions based on application blank and test score information. They then conducted audiotaped interviews. Coders independently coded 79 interviews and found that 1st impressions were related to confirmatory behavior. Interviewers followed up positive 1st impressions, for example, by showing positive regard toward applicants, "selling" the company and giving job information, and gathering less information. Applicants' communication style and rapport with interviewers also differed. Significant differences in confirmatory behaviors also occurred among the 3 interviewers. A number of interviewer behaviors, especially positive regard, were related to applicant behavior in interviews. Although previous studies of expectancy confirmation have produced mixed results, the present results suggest that interviewers in natural settings do use confirmatory strategies, underscoring the importance of additional research on "self-fulfilling prophecies." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on police and social workers' investigative interviews of children.

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted 8 months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent “refresher” training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Note-taking in the employment interview: Effects on recall and judgments.

Although note-taking in the employment interview is highly recommended, little research has examined its effects. This study investigated the effects of note-taking styles, review of the notes, and content of the notes on participants' cued recall of information and decisions made from videotaped employment interviews. Note-taking increased recall accuracy but not judgment accuracy. Being able to review notes resulted in increased judgment accuracy for those taking conventional-style notes. The content of the notes also had important implications for conventional note-takers, suggesting some benefits of recording notes using the key-points style. The findings suggest that the act of note-taking may be more important for memory and legal reasons than for improving the decisions made by interviewers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental Illness and Employment.

Comments on an article by Sturm and Lipton, and the article they are commenting on, by Rothaus, Cleveland and Johnson (see record 1964-02889-001). Sturm and Lipton criticize the study by Rothaus, Hanson, Cleveland and Johnson (the current authors) on the grounds that employment of psychiatrically discharged patients is controlled by personnel directors and not by employment interviewers. In our study we had found it advantageous for the psychiatric patient seeking employment to describe his recent hospitalization as a learning experience designed to aid him in coping with the problems of living rather than alluding to his hospitalization as treatment or a cure for illness. Using the former approach, ex-psychiatric-patients were judged by employment interviewers of the Texas Employment Commission as being more readily employable than patients using the mental-illness approach. But Sturm and Lipton complain that we were working with the wrong people since only personnel directors and employers do the direct hiring. In Texas at least, this is not necessarily so. The authors also comment on other criticisms of Sturm and Lipton. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The reaction of interviewers to favorable and unfavorable information.

How do interviewers react as information shifts in the direction of favorability or unfavorability? No actual interviews were involved. Protocols were used by 16 raters. "Primacy effects are shown to be related to the first shift in direction of evidence; magnitude of effects are shown to be related to the degree of interviewer committment at the point of shift and the weight of the challenging information." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3LD97B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interviewer use of positive and negative self-disclosure and interviewer-subject sex pairing.

Investigated the effect of interviewer use of positive or negative self-disclosure and interviewer-S sex pairing on Ss' perceptions of the interviewer and of their own behavior. 36 male and 36 female undergraduates served as Ss; 3 male and 3 female doctoral students served as interviewers. Results indicate that (a) interviewers who disclosed negative information about themselves were perceived as significantly more empathic, warm, and credible than interviewers who disclosed positive information about themselves; (b) Ss interviewed by a negatively disclosing interviewer perceived that they procrastinated significantly less after the interview than before, while the opposite was true for subjects in the positive disclosure condition; (c) Ss in both disclosure conditions were significantly more confident of their procrastination estimates after the interview; and (d) none of the effects due to interviewer-S sex pairing reached significance. The need for further studies investigating interviewer self-disclosure as both a means of generating a facilitative atmosphere and a counseling intervention to effect perceived or behavioral client change is noted. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Employment Interview: A Social Judgment Process.

Reviews the book, The Employment Interview: A Social Judgment Process by Edward C. Webster (1982). Webster himself clearly states that it is not a manual for training new interviewers. Neither would it structure a training programme to improve current levels of interviewer performance, although it contains many useful suggestions for such a program. It is for students of the interview. The term students is used broadly here. Structurally, following the introduction, Chapter 2 reviews the key McGill findings on decision-making in the employment interview. Chapter 3 introduces three models of interview research. Chapter 4 reviews findings on interviewer expectancy effects. Chapter 5 reviews related research on implicit personality and impression formation. Chapter 6 reviews external influences, including the physical environment, contrast effects, the pressure to employ, situational role constraints, and knowledge of job requirements. Chapter 7 is a review of documented failures to train interviewers to make more accurate interview decisions. Chapter 8 reviews the findings on structure in the interview. The final chapter, the interviewer-applicant relationship, shines some well-directed light on the applicant side of the picture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The theory of the mind of the autistic child]

It has been suggested that hypnosis techniques may have the potential to enhance eyewitness memory in forensic investigations. However, laboratory research shows that increases in recall with hypnosis techniques are often associated with decreases in accuracy, false confidence in incorrect information, and increased suggestibility to leading questions and misleading post-event information. These problems limit the usefulness of hypnosis as an interviewing procedure. However, in practical investigations, many factors associated with hypnosis, apart from the hypnotic induction itself, might lead to memory enhancement compared with standard police interviews. For example, hypnotic interviewers, because of their psychological, clinical, and interpersonal skills, may be better interviewers than police officers. They may use effective interviewing strategies such as those associated with the "cognitive interview"; a procedure which has the potential to enhance recall by approximately 35% without the problems of memory distortion associated with hypnosis. It is concluded, therefore, that a cognitive interview procedure should be used in preference to hypnosis.     

Effects of procedure and outcome accountability on interview validity.

This study tested effects of holding interviewers accountable for either the procedure they follow to make interview judgments (procedure accountability) or the accuracy of their judgments (outcome accountability) on interview validity. Undergraduates (N=338) simulated employment interviewers in an experiment that crossed 2 levels of procedure accountability with 2 levels of outcome accountability. They watched videotapes of 60 managers answering an interview question and rated the managers on leadership potential. The dependent variable was the correlation between their interview judgments and supervisory ratings of the managers' actual leadership performance on the job. Results showed that procedure accountability increased interview validity and outcome accountability lowered it. Participants' apparent attentiveness fully mediated effects of procedure accountability on interview validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reproducibility of data in a study of the risk factors for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

The reliability of information about mothers' and fathers' education, weight and height at birth, history of diarrhoea, duration of exclusive breast feeding and age of introduction of cows' milk products, selected from a structured questionnaire used in home interviewers was examined in a sample of 38 cases and 38 controls from a study related to the risk factors of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The repetition of the questions was done by telephone. The agreement between the answers of both interviewers was verified using the kappa statistic (categorical variables) and the intra-class correlation coefficient (quantitative variables). The results enable one to conclude that the information is reproducible.