Examining the situational antecedents of interview faking behavior: A qualitative study

Abstract

Over a decade has passed since the development of Levashina and Campion's (2006) Model of Faking Likelihood in Employment Interviews. Although researchers have accumulated considerable knowledge about interview faking, this literature may benefit from a deeper understanding of certain areas such as the situational antecedents of this behavior. As such, we conducted nine focus groups with Canadian participants to explore this research question. An inductive thematic analysis of these focus group data yielded three organizing themes for the situational antecedents of interview faking behavior: Conditions of Need Within Specific Interviews, Scope for Elusion, and Induced External Pressures. Overall, these findings provide novel insights that will help researchers and practitioners to better understand and predict interview faking.

Thou Shalt not Lie! Exploring and testing countermeasures against faking intentions and faking in selection interviews

“…Concerning the possible effects of a personable interviewer on faking intentions, an empirical test revealed a null effect. This is in contrast to Study 1 and to the qualitative study by Ho et al (2021) that found that a friendly interviewer reduced interview anxiety and therefore the probability of faking. A reason why we did not find any effect could be that participants could not perceive any interview anxiety due to the hypothetical scenario and thus an interviewer described as personable had no impact on faking intentions.…”

“…Furthermore, the qualitative answers from the open-ended questions in Study 1 also revealed a surprising result that was not predicted by any of the current faking models (e.g., Levashina & Campion, 2006;McFarland & Ryan, 2000Roulin, Krings & Binggeli, 2016). However, Ho et al (2021) found similar results in a recent qualitative study. In our study, nearly 20% of the answers indicated that a personable interviewer would prevent participants from faking in an interview.…”

“…Furthermore, alternative approaches to better understand relevant factors and processes that contribute to more or less faking in actual selection interviews could also help. The unexpected but frequent mention of a personable interviewer in Study 1 and the related finding in the qualitative study by Ho et al (2021) suggest, that the currently available faking models are still incomplete. Thus, more qualitative research might be needed to detect further potential gaps in our theories.…”

“…In addition, there is hardly any prior research on interview faking related to interviewer friendliness (also see the review by Melchers et al, 2020). However, in a recent qualitative study, Ho et al (2021) also found that informants were less likely to fake with a friendly interviewer because they felt less interview anxiety. Therefore, it might be the case that applicants feel more comfortable with a personable interviewer, making it easier for them to admit weaknesses or that they simply reward the interviewer's friendliness with honesty.…”

“…Research has shown that faking can have a positive effect on interview outcomes. Some studies found relationships between self‐reported faking behavior and interview outcomes in real selection interviews (e.g., Levashina & Campion, 2007), or between self‐reported faking behavior in general and ratings of interviewees' performance in simulated interview settings (Buehl & Melchers, 2017; Ingold et al, 2015; but see Ho et al, 2021). Furthermore, experimental studies found that interviewees in mock interviews were able to obtain higher interview ratings in a condition in which they were instructed to answer as they would in a real selection setting than in a condition in which they were instructed to provide honest answers (Buehl et al, 2019; Van Iddekinge et al, 2005).…”