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THE EFFECT OF SEX SIMILARITY ON RECRUITERS' EVALUATIONS OF ACTUAL APPLICANTS: A TEST OF THE SIMILARITY‐ATTRACTION PARADIGM
Author(s) -
GRAVES LAURA M.,
POWELL GARY N.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
personnel psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.076
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1744-6570
pISSN - 0031-5826
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-6570.1995.tb01747.x
Subject(s) - similarity (geometry) , interpersonal attraction , psychology , attraction , social psychology , interpersonal communication , test (biology) , identity (music) , structural equation modeling , interpersonal relationship , social identity theory , statistics , social group , mathematics , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , artificial intelligence , computer science , acoustics , image (mathematics) , biology
The present study examined the effect of sex similarity on recruiters' evaluations of actual applicants in campus interviews and tested whether perceived similarity and interpersonal attraction mediated this effect. Structural equation modeling was performed on data from 476 campus interviews. The results revealed complex effects of sex similarity on recruiters' decision processes. Perceived similarity and interpersonal attraction mediated the effect of sex similarity on female recruiters' assessments of applicants' qualifications. Unexpectedly, female recruiters saw male applicants as more similar to themselves and more qualified than female applicants. For male recruiters, interview outcomes were not affected by sex similarity. Social identity theory, which suggests that the status associated with demographic characteristics may influence the nature of demographic similarity effects, provides a possible explanation for the findings.