The Interactive Influence of Ambition and Sociability on Performance in a Behavior Description Interview

The purpose of this study was to present and empirically test the potential influence on ratings in a behavior description interview (BDI) of the personality traits ambition and sociability, two facets of extraversion. Results suggest a relatively strong role for ambition in the administration and outcomes of BDIs in organizational selection, particularly when its interaction with sociability is taken into consideration. In a sample of 85 participants working in entry-level positions, the correlation with BDI ratings was .22 for ambition alone, which increased to .44 when sociability and its interaction with ambition were added. Adding sociability by itself to ambition without the interaction term resulted in a minimal increase in predictability of BDI ratings. Implications of these results include the possibility of a general BDI performance factor, one that may tend to capture maximal (rather than typical) behavior

Functional forms of competence: Interviewing

Citation: Huffcutt, A. I., Culbertson, S. S., & Riforgiate, S. E. (2015). Functional forms of competence: Interviewing. In A. F. Hannawa & B. H. Spitzberg (Eds.), Communication Competence (Vol. 24) (pp. 431-448). Boston: De Gruyer Mouton.Employment interviews are ubiquitous in the workplace, providing a necessary step in the hiring process and influencing organizational composition and applicant employment. Research pertaining to professional interviewing is frequently conducted outside of the communication discipline, yet the nature of the interview interaction is highly communicative. The purpose of this chapter is to develop a solid foundation for understanding communication in employment interviews by utilizing the concept of communication competence as a theoretical basis. Specifically, we address aspects of communication effectiveness and appropriateness in employment interviews, including how they vary according to the degree of their standardization. For instance, both parties (interviewer and interviewee) have the goal of reducing uncertainty, although the nature of those goals differ (e.g., organizational perspectives regarding potential interviewee performance verses interviewee perceptions of job fit and the likelihood of being offered the job). Directions for future research are presented, including a pressing need for research examining how the two parties adjust communication during the interaction based on perceptions of the other’s communication behaviors

Potential Applications of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to Organizational Research: A Primer and Sample Study

The first purpose of this manuscript is to provide a primer for organizational researchers on both fMRI and brain physiology because few are likely to have encountered an in-depth treatment of either previously. The second purpose is to present the results of an actual fMRI study on an organizational topic (structured employment interviews) as a sample to help illustrate the potential of this type of research. Results of the sample study enhanced understanding of the brain processes behind responding to situational (SI) and behavior description (BDI) interviews, and offered several promising directions for follow-up research. To illustrate the latter, there appears to be separate region of the brain for handling complex social situations, which was activated only in the SI scans. This region could help explain the common use of the impression management tactic ingratiation in SIs. Given the emerging trend for larger universities to acquire fMRI equipment for research purposes, this type of research may be more viable then ever for organizational researchers

Are men universally more dismissing than women? Gender differences in romantic attachment across 62 cultural regions

The authors thank Susan Sprecher (USA), Del Paulhus (Canada), Glenn D. Wilson (England), Qazi Rahman (England), Alois Angleitner (Germany), Angelika Hofhansl (Austria), Tamio Imagawa (Japan), Minoru Wada (Japan), Junichi Taniguchi (Japan), and Yuji Kanemasa (Japan) for helping with data collection and contributing significantly to the samples used in this study.Gender differences in the dismissing form of adult romantic attachment were investigated as part of the International Sexuality Description Project—a survey study of 17,804 people from 62 cultural regions. Contrary to research findings previously reported in Western cultures, we found that men were not significantly more dismissing than women across all cultural regions. Gender differences in dismissing romantic attachment were evident in most cultures, but were typically only small to moderate in magnitude. Looking across cultures, the degree of gender differentiation in dismissing romantic attachment was predictably associated with sociocultural indicators. Generally, these associations supported evolutionary theories of romantic attachment, with smaller gender differences evident in cultures with high–stress and high–fertility reproductive environments. Social role theories of human sexuality received less support in that more progressive sex–role ideologies and national gender equity indexes were not cross–culturally linked as expected to smaller gender differences in dismissing romantic attachment.peer-reviewe

Development of Biographical Predictors of Cashier Turnover at a Convenience Store Chain

Subjects, 432 convenience store cashiers, were divided into long-tenure and short-tenure groups. Chi-square analysis of application blank information for a weighting sample drawn from both groups revealed two items which significantly (p < .05) differentiated between the long tenure and short-tenure groups: number of previous jobs and full-time/part-time preference. Response weights were computed for these two items and used to calculate composite scores for the remaining holdout sample. A significant reduction in turnover would have occurred at the highest composite score level, if used as a hiring cut off. Results were tempered by several considerations, including a high percentage of false negatives and an insignificant linear relationship between composite scores and tenure

An empirical investigation of the relationship between multidimensional degree of structure and the validity of the employment interview

Typescript (photocopy).The first purpose of this investigation was to present a conceptual framework for systematically classifying interview studies according to their degree of structure. This framework was based on the premise that interview structure serves to reduce procedural variability across applicants and was comprised of five different dimensions of interview structure. Such a framework helped to clarify the defining features of interview structure and thus provided a basis from which to empirically examine the relationship between the degree of structure and validity of the employment interview. The second purpose of this investigation was to delineate the potential effects of structure on the various stages of the interview process. A conceptual integration of the structural framework with the process model of the interview developed by Dipboye (Dipboye, 1982; Dipboye, 1989; Dipboye & Macan, 1988) suggested a number of important effects that can result from standardization of each the five dimensions of structure. These effects were then used to make specific predictions regarding the impact of increased standardization along each structural dimension on interview validity. The final purpose of this investigation was to empirically examine the relationship between degree of structure and the validity of the employment interview. Results indicated that standardization of interview questions was an important determinant of interview validity. Increased standardization of questions was consistently associated with higher overall validity. Results also suggested a curvilinear relationship between standardization of response evaluation and interview validity. Increased standardization was initially associated with higher overall validity, but subsequently was associated with lower overall validity. The optimum level of response evaluation appeared to be evaluation along multiple specified criteria rather than a global evaluation or evaluation of each individual response. In addition, results suggested that mechanical combination of ratings was superior to subjective combination of ratings and that use of the same interviewer or interview panel across the entire applicant pool was associated with higher overall validity than use of different interviewers

Enhancing Consistency of Maximal Responding in Behavior Description Interviews: An Exploration of Priming and Response Length

In a Behavior Description Interview (BDI), candidates are asked to describe past experiences that demonstrate skills and abilities important for the position (Janz, 1982). A recent study by Huffcutt et al. (2020) found that only around half of participants (48.1 percent) describe an experience reflecting maximal performance capability. Random mixing of maximal capability with day-to-day typical performance tendencies is problematic psychometrically because candidates are not all providing comparable information and top candidates could be overlooked. Given notable methodological concerns with Huffcutt et al.’s approach, our first purpose was to provide empirical confirmation that maximal responding in BDIs is, in fact, inconsistent. Our estimate of the proportion of maximal responding was even lower (41.3 percent), further amplifying concerns when assessment of maximal performance capability is desired (e.g., for many professional positions). The second purpose was to investigate two factors that could increase the consistency of maximal responding: rewording the main BDI question to focus directly on absolute top-end experiences (i.e., priming) and longer response length. Both were found to have significant effects. A number of directions for future research were identified, which, along with these findings, could help researchers move closer to the long-term goal of uniform description of experiences that reflect each candidate’s maximal capability (or typical tendencies if so desired)