ACCURACY OF INTERVIEWER JUDGMENTS OF JOB APPLICANT PERSONALITY TRAITS

This study investigated whether interviewers can assess Big Five personality traits during a job interview. Four raters (self, interviewer, friend, and stranger) assessed the applicant's personality. Results from ratings for 73 applicants demonstrated that interviewer ratings of applicant personality correlate higher with self-ratings ( = .28) than do stranger ratings ( = .09) but less than ratings from close friends ( = .39). However, correlations between interviewer ratings and self-ratings were smaller for the two job-relevant personality traits, Conscientiousness ( = .16, n.s.) and Emotional Stability ( = .17, n.s.) than for the other three personality traits. Variance in ratings suggested the applicants managed their self-presentation on these two traits during the interview. Thus, although interviewers can and do assess personality during the interview, they are not able to assess those traits that would best predict later job success. Finally, the moderating effect of interview design (i.e., structure and content) was assessed. The results revealed that job-relevant interviews, situational interviews, and behavioral interviews did not affect an interviewer's ability to assess personality. Although there was a small (positive) effect for more structured interviews, this affect was modest. The results of this study suggest that future research should examine whether the interview can be designed to assess personality directly, and what the gains to predictive validity are by doing so.     

Adult Detection of Children's Selfish and Polite Lies: Experience Matters

Five groups of participants (N = 150) with differing amounts of experience working with children were assessed on their ability to detect children's lying or truth telling. Children's lies were told for antisocial reasons (i.e., self‐serving lies) and for prosocial reasons (i.e., to benefit others). Overall, adults were more accurate at identifying children's dishonest statements than their true statements, and children's antisocial lies were detected more accurately than were their prosocial lies. While adults without experience were poor at detecting child lie tellers and truth tellers, adults with extensive child experience were better at distinguishing children's lies and truths.     

The relative severity of acts of physical violence in heterosexual relationships: An item response theory analysis

This study evaluated the structure of an expanded version of the physical violence scale of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS). A community sample of 1,092 randomly selected men and women reported on perpetration and receipt of 14 violent acts in their relationships. Item response theory analyses indicated that the violence items were unidimensional for recipient and perpetrator reports of men's and women's violence. There was convergence between severity of acts as reported by perpetrators and recipients for both men's and women's violence. Results indicated that adding together the number of different acts endorsed to form a total score is appropriate for both men's and women's violence. Total scores were strongly related to likelihood of injury, supporting the validity of CTS‐type measures to assess severity of violence.     

Mighty Fortresses: Explaining the Spatial Distribution of American Megachurches

One of the most significant phenomena in organized religion over the past two decades is the development and growth of the "megachurch." While these dramatically large campuses and congregations represent a relatively new aspect of religious life in the United States, they are already having a profound effect on the way in which Americans worship through their size and often their wealth. Given their size and increasing numbers, where they are located takes on a special significance. We assess their location within the context of a range of demographic and economic factors in those states in which they are most prevalent.