The Effects of Interview Length on Gender and Personality Related Bias in Job Interviews

The proposed study explores the cognitive miser approach to perception formation in job interviews, as well as factors that may motivate people to not act as cognitive misers. Personality type (introverted and extraverted) and gender are characteristics of people that are associated with many stereotypes (Heilman, 2001; Andersen & Klatzky, 1987), and can have a large influence on an employer’s perception of an applicant, particularly when the employer is acting as a cognitive miser. It is hypothesized that in longer interviews, employers will be motivated to not act as cognitive misers, because they have more information about the applicant, have more of an opportunity to disconfirm any biases they may hold about the applicant, and experience greater liking toward the applicant. To test this, participants will conduct interviews with job applicants (who are actually confederates) and rate their perceptions of the applicants’ expected job performance. Participants will either conduct a long or short interview with a male introvert, a female introvert, a male extravert, or a female extravert. Job applicants will provide participants with the same information, although the information about personality type and the amount of information given will depend on the condition. It is predicted that participants who conduct shorter interviews will rate the applicants in line with popular stereotypes that favor extraverts over introverts, and males over females. Conversely, participants in longer interviews will be motivated to thoroughly think through their evaluations of the applicants, and there will be no significant difference in their ratings of male extraverts, female extraverts, male introverts, and female introverts