Training to Reduce the Use of Irrelevant Information in Personnel Selection

Abstract

Abstract : This study represents a summary of work in progress on the role of irrelevant information in personnel selection. The research was designed to advance previous work on training agricultural experts to avoid irrelevant information. This was accomplished in two ways. First, Nagy's (1981) results showing that subjects used irrelevant job applicant information in making hiring recommendations was replicated. It was found that in addition to relevant information, irrelevant information of age, sex, and physical attractiveness were used as a part of hiring judgments. Second, two training programs (one lecture based, one interactively based) designed to reduce the use of irrelevant information were evaluated. These training programs were adapted from ones successfully used in an earlier study involving soil judges (Shanteau & Gaeth, 1981). The two training programs were tested separately using a pre-test, training, post-test design. The results, although only tenative, show that both the lecture training and the interactive training reduced the influence of the irrelevant information. These results suggest that the training techniques developed previously for agricultural judgment can be successfully extended to improve personnel selection judgments.

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