Premium
Disregarding Preliminary Information When Rating Job Applicants' Performance: Mission Impossible? 1
Author(s) -
MironShatz Talya,
BenShakhar Gershon
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00348.x
Subject(s) - selection (genetic algorithm) , assessment center , psychological intervention , test (biology) , psychology , personnel selection , impartiality , control (management) , resource (disambiguation) , rating scale , job performance , applied psychology , actuarial science , social psychology , computer science , business , economics , management , job satisfaction , political science , artificial intelligence , paleontology , computer network , developmental psychology , psychiatry , law , biology
Firms allocate considerable resources to test job applicants' skills and to ensure that hiring decisions are nondiscriminatory. Interpreting selection output in light of preliminary information may undermine the impartiality of personnel selection decisions. In this study, human resource managers were presented preliminary information about a candidate's performance and asked to rate him according to a detailed assessment‐center report of his performance. We examined several interventions for reducing reliance on preliminary information: retrieving assessment‐center information, generating a rating model, or both. Participants ( N = 167) excluded preliminary information from the interventions, but relied on it when rating the candidate. The documented failure to control for the effects of preliminary information on subsequent judgments can contribute to improved selection procedures.