Dispositional and situational predictors of confirmatory behavior in the employment interview

Abstract

This study analyzes the interviewers' propensity to use their first impressions about their interviewees and to subsequently engage in higher or lower levels of confirmatory behaviors toward their interviewees during the employment interview. Confirmatory behaviors include interviewers' behaviors, during the interpersonal interaction with the interviewees, intended to lead those interviewers to confirm their first impressions formed about the interviewees at the beginning of the interaction (i.e., employment interview). This study also explores the tendency of the interviewees to engage in behavioral confirmation toward their interviewers, by taking cues form their interviewers and matching or imitating the behaviors of their interviewers. Results provide moderate support for the hypotheses: confirmatory behavior was found to be related to one specific motivational trait - need for cognition - and to the extremity of first impressions formed about interviewees. In addition, the analysis of the research question indicated that interviewees tend to engage in behavioral confirmation toward their interviewers. This study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it opens a new direction in the employment interview research, which searches to identify links between individual characteristics and their decision-making strategies and outcomes. Practically, it helps improve interview training and design.