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The present study investigated job applicants use of deception. The study examined
applicants deception on written applications, as well as in a job interview; whether
individuals would lie to conform to job requirements; and whether extraversion and
self-monitoring are related to lying. Fifty-nine candidates completed an application
and interview. After the interview, candidates were informed that they were actually
participating in an experiment. They then watched a videotape of their interview
and indicated any lies they told. As hypothesized, it was found that applicants lied
both on the job applications and during the interview, primarily to appear to
conform to job requirements. Furthermore, candidate extraversion was positively
correlated with number of lies told, although self-monitoring was unrelated to
lying.
1070
more when the job requirements become more technical and difficult
to fulfill. Such reasoning is consistent with prior research that finds
differences in the frequency of impression management techniques related to
the nature of the job for which a candidate is applying (Howard & Ferris,
1996).
It is also reasonable to assume that personality traits are related to an
individuals tendencies to use impression management deceptively. Kristof-
Brown, Barrick, and Franke (2002) found that extraverts are more likely to
use self-promoting tactics in interviews. They argued that extraverts, as a
result of their sociability and talkativeness, were more capable of articulat-
ing their skills and abilities and, therefore, more likely to self-promote in
interviews. Although they did not distinguish between deceptive and non-
deceptive uses of impression management, it is likely that some of this
impression management was deceptive.
In fact, extraverts tend to lie more than introverts in everyday situations
(Kashy & DePaulo, 1996). Given this, one might also suspect that extraverts
would also lie more in an interview context. The reasons for this are twofold
(Kashy & DePaulo, 1996). One reason is extraverts heightened desire to
look good. That is, because extraverts are sociable, they may place more of
an emphasis on gaining the acceptance of others, and one way to gain
acceptance is by creating a positive image of themselves, regardless of its
truthfulness. Another reason why extraverts might lie more in interviews
than introverts is their better understanding of the social interaction process,
including the process of telling lies. Since extraverts find themselves in more
social interactions, it is possible that they have more practice telling lies,
making them more skilled at it, resulting in more persuasive lies. With this
success at lying, one might expect extraverts to lie more frequently, including
telling lies within the interview context.
Another personality trait that is likely to be associated with deception in
job interviews is self-monitoring. High self-monitors tend to regulate their
public self-presentation by adjusting to social and interpersonal cues (Ickes,
Reidhead, & Patterson, 1986; Snyder & Gangestad, 1982, 1986). In job
interviews, one might expect high self-monitors to adjust their behaviors to
conform to the interviewers expectations and to the job requirements. If the
interviewers expectations exceeded their skills, perhaps high self-monitors
would be more sensitive to this disparity, adjusting their behavior to create
a greater congruence between the two. If lying were perceived as a way
to enhance the person-job fit, then, since high self-monitors are more
likely to notice a lack of fit, they may be more likely to lie to remedy this
disparity.
In sum, the present study examined peoples use of deception in job
interviews. It was hypothesized that deception would be used both on the
1074 WEISS AND FELDMAN
written application and in the oral interview and that deception would vary
as a function of the nature of the job requirements. Specifically, in a con-
dition requiring technical skills, the job was described as requiring strong
statistical abilities, as well as personal qualities of being orderly, organized,
methodical, dutiful, and disciplined. In a condition requiring interpersonal
skills, the job was described as requiring good verbal skills as well as the
personal qualities of being sociable, enthusiastic, outgoing, talkative, and
active. It was hypothesized that candidates would tend to lie more in the
technical skills condition than in the interpersonal skills condition to com-
pensate for their lack of job-required skills and traits. Furthermore, it was
hypothesized that extraverts would lie more than introverts and that high
self-monitors would lie more than low self-monitors.
Method
Overview
Participants
Procedure
the study. The experimenter fully explained the nature of the study, how
participants were selected, and the importance and rationale for the meth-
odological process. In addition, participants were given experimental credit
for their participation in the second phase. No participant left the study
without a clear understanding of the reason for the deception.
Dependent Measures
Personality Measures
Manipulation Checks
Believability of job interview. Since the goal of this study was to analyze
peoples behavior in job interviews, it was essential that they perceived that
they were, indeed, in an interview. At the studys completion (after debrief-
ing), participants were asked, on a 7-point scale from 1 (believed this was an
actual interview) to 7 (did not believe this was an actual interview) the extent
to which they believed that they were participating in a real interview. With
an average response of 2.47, it was clear that people believed that they were,
indeed, in a job interview. In addition, (prior to debriefing) two questions
asked how seriously participants took the interview and how interested they
were in the position. On a 7-point scale from 1 (not serious/not interested ) to
7 (very serious/very interested), participants reported that they were serious
about the interview (M 5 6.53) as well as interested in the position
(M 5 6.66).
Stringency of job requirements. To confirm the assumption that partic-
ipants generally would feel less qualified for the technical job than the in-
terpersonal job, a pilot test was conducted. Twenty-eight participants read
the job description (13 math, 15 verbal) and answered how qualified they felt
they were for the position. Overall, participants felt they were qualified
(M 5 5.39; 1 5 not qualified, 7 5 qualified ) for both jobs. However, students
who read the technical job description perceived that they would be signif-
icantly less qualified (M 5 4.62) than participants who read the interper-
sonal job description (M 5 6.07), t (26) 5 2.66, p o .01, providing evidence
that the manipulation produced the desired perception about the job re-
quirements in participants.
Results
Overall, participants told a total of 129 lies, of which over 90% (115)
were classified as promoting impression management, whereas only 10%
1080 WEISS AND FELDMAN
Job Interview
Taken as a whole, 81% of the participants admitted telling at least one lie
in the interview. On average, participants admitted telling 2.19 lies per in-
terview. Furthermore, as predicted, participants lied more in the technical
skills (M 5 2.58) condition than the interpersonal skills (M 5 1.79) condition
(t 5 1.65, p o .05, one-tailed).
To explore whether people lied to conform to the specific job require-
ments, a 2 (job requirement: interpersonal- or technical-oriented) 2 (lie
type: interpersonal-oriented or technical-oriented) mixed-design analysis
of variance (excluding lies that were neither interpersonal- nor technical-
oriented) was performed. An analysis of the interaction between these two
variables indicated that individuals in the technical condition told more
technical-oriented lies, whereas individuals in the interpersonal condition
told more interpersonal-oriented lies (F 5 4.41, p o .05, Z2 5 .081; see
Figure 1). The main effects for both the job condition and the types of lies
told were not significant (F 5 .05, ns, and F 5 .55, ns, respectively).
These findings support the contention that individuals were not just
telling more lies in the technical condition than the interpersonal condition:
Technical-oriented lie
Interpersonal-oriented lie
0.8
0.7
0.6
Number of lies
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Technical job Interpersonal job
They were telling lies that were directly relevant to the job. Furthermore,
because participants were less qualified in the technical versus the interper-
sonal condition, the participants were more likely to tell lies in order to
compensate for their lack of job-required traits and skills.
Table 1
the results showed that the more extraverted a person was, the more apt he
or she was to lie.
To examine whether extraverts or self-monitors tended to use a partic-
ular type of impression management tactic when lying, correlations were
performed between the personality predictors and the impression manage-
ment tactics (self-promoting and enhancements). Consistent with those of
Kristof-Brown et al. (2002), results indicated that there was a significant
correlation between extraversion and self-promotion (r 5 .37, p o .05), im-
plying that the more extraverted a person was, the more apt he or she was to
tell self-promoting lies about their skills and abilities. No other significant
correlations were found.
Discussion
The present study provided clear empirical evidence that people lie in job
interviews to further their chances for employment. These lies were man-
ifested both verbally and in writing, as candidates were deceptive both in the
interview and on the application. Furthermore, when the job requirements
were more technical, deception increased, most likely in an attempt by ap-
plicants to compensate for their lack of job-required skills and traits.
In the oral interview, participants told lies that specifically conformed to
the job. If participants were in the technical condition, they were more likely
to boast about their statistical and organizational skills, whereas if they were
in the interpersonal condition, they were more likely to boast about their
interpersonal skills. Support for this interpretation was also found on the
LYING TO GET THE JOB 1083
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