It's not what you are, it's what you know: experience, beliefs, and the detection of deception in employment interviews

Abstract

This study investigated the ability of more or less experienced employment interviewers and laypersons to detect deception in employment interviews. Although correct beliefs about indicators of deception led to higher deception detection accuracy, more experienced employment interviewers did not show more accurate beliefs about indicators of deception and did not perform better at detecting deception than less experienced interviewers and laypersons. Furthermore, more experienced interviewers showed a less-pronounced tendency of judging messages as true irrespective of their actual truthfulness (truth bias) than less experienced interviewers and laypersons. It is suggested that experience in employment interviewing does not automatically lead to higher deception detection abilities in employment interviews, but that correcting people's beliefs about indicators of deception can do so.

Individual Differences Predicting Impression Management Detection in Job Interviews

“…However, our limited knowledge of the actual role played by interviewers and their ability to detect and interpret IM tactics used by job applicants can prevent this line of research from advancing further. In line with recent efforts on IM or deception detection in the interview context (e.g., Reinhard, Scharmach, & Müller, 2013;, this study confirms that detecting IM is a difficult task and that people perform only slightly above chance level on average.…”

“…Similar results have also been found in a field study, where interviewers' perceptions of tactics used by applicants after real interviews failed to converge with the tactics actually reported by applicants (Roulin et al, 2014). These findings also converge with deception detection research showing that people's detection abilities tend to be similar to chance levels (e.g., Bond & DePaulo, 2008;Reinhard, Scharmach, & Müller, 2013).…”

“…In the interview IM literature, this possibility has been only seldom researched. For instance, interviewers' gender, age, or experience does not predict IM detection abilities (Roulin et al, 2014, a finding that is consistent with earlier research on deception detection (Reinhard, Scharmach, & Müller, 2013;Vrij et al, 2010). Overall, deception detection research has failed to uncover robust individual differences in deception detection abilities (Bond & DePaulo, 2008).…”

“…First, consistent with previous deception detection research (Bond & DePaulo, 2008), the effects observed in this study were relatively small. Moreover, although earlier research found no difference in detection between professional interviewers and novices (e.g., Reinhard, Scharmach, & Müller, 2013;, IM detection was slightly higher for respondents without than those with previous experience as interviewers. Yet, the actual experience of the 110 "experienced" individuals was still limited (e.g., a median of two interviews conducted).…”

Honest and Deceptive Impression Management in the Employment Interview: Can It Be Detected and How Does It Impact Evaluations?

“…For instance, in a recent study, interviewers watched 1‐minute statements from applicants and classified them as truths or lies. Interviewers were correct 52.4% of the time (Reinhard, Scharmach, & Müller, ), which is only slightly above chance (i.e., 50%). But applicants’ statements consisted of short descriptions of real and invented work experiences and not responses to interview questions.…”