Stubborn Reliance on Intuition and Subjectivity in Employee Selection

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1 (2008), 333–342. Copyright ª 2008 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1754-9426/08 FOCAL ARTICLE Stubborn Reliance on Intuition and Subjectivity in Employee Selection SCOTT HIGHHOUSE Bowling Green State University Abstract The focus of this article is on implicit beliefs that inhibit adoption of selection decision aids (e.g., paper-and-pencil tests, structured interviews, mechanical combination of predictors). Understanding these beliefs is just as important as understanding organizational constraints to the adoption of selection technologies and may be more useful for informing the design of successful interventions. One of these is the implicit belief that it is theoretically possible to achieve near-perfect precision in predicting performance on the job. That is, people have an inherent resistance to analytical approaches to selection because they fail to view selection as probabilistic and subject to error. Another is the implicit belief that prediction of human behavior is improved through experience. This myth of expertise results in an overreliance on intuition and a reluctance to undermine one’s own credibility by using a selection decision aid. Perhaps the greatest technological achieve- unstructured interviews. For example, the ment in industrial and organizational (I–O) right side of Figure 1 shows the results of psychology over the past 100 years is the a meta-analysis conducted on the actual development of decision aids (e.g., paper- effectiveness of these same procedures for and-pencil tests, structured interviews, predicting performance in sales (Vinchur mechanical combination of predictors) that Schippmann, Switzer, & Roth, 1998). Use of substantially reduce error in the predic- any one of the paper-and-pencil tests alone tion of employee performance (Schmidt & outperforms the unstructured interview—a Hunter, 1998). Arguably, the greatest failure procedure that is presumed to assess ability, of I–O psychology has been the inability to personality, and aptitude concurrently. convince employers to use them. A little over Although one might argue that these data 10 years ago, Terpstra (1996) sampled 201 merely reflect a lack of knowledge about human resources (HR) executives about the effective practice, there is considerable evi- perceived effectiveness of various selection dence that employers simply do not believe methods. As the left side of Figure 1 shows, that the research is relevant to their own sit- they considered the traditional unstructured uation (Colbert, Rynes, & Brown, 2005; interview more effective than any of the Johns, 1993; Muchinsky, 2004; Terpstra & paper-and-pencil assessment procedures. Rozelle, 1997; Whyte & Latham, 1997). Inspection of actual effectiveness of these For example, Rynes, Colbert, and Brown procedures, however, shows that paper- (2002) found that HR professionals were and-pencil tests commonly outperform well aware of the limitations of the unstructured interview. Similarly, one of my stu- dents conducted a yet-unpublished survey Correspondence concerning this article should be of HR professionals (n ¼ 206) about their addressed to Scott Highhouse. E-mail: [email protected] Address: Bowling Green State University, Bowling views of selection practice. His data indi- Green, OH 43403. cated that the HR professionals agreed, by 333 334 S. Highhouse Unstructured Unstructured Interview Interview Specific Specific AptitudeTest AptitudeTest Personality Personality Test Test GMA Test GMA Test 12345 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 Perceived Effectiveness Actual Effectiveness (Sales) Figure 1. Perceived versus actual usefulness of various predictors. Note. Perceived effectiveness numbers are on a 1–5 scale (1 ¼ not good;3¼ average;5¼ extremely good). Actual effectiveness numbers are correlations corrected for unreliability in the criterion and range restriction. Because Vinchur, Schippmann, Switzer, and Roth (1998) did not include interviews, the interview estimate is from Huffcutt and Arthur (1994) level 1 interview. GMA ¼ general mental ability; personality ¼ potency; specific aptitude ¼ sales ability. a factor of more than 3 to 1, that using tests Malcolm Gladwell’s (2005) Blink: The was an effective way to evaluate a candi- Power of Thinking Without Thinking and date’s suitability and that tests that assess Gerd Gigerenzer’s (2007) Gut Feelings: specific traits are effective for hiring em- The Intelligence of the Unconscious, which ployees. At the same time, however, these extol the virtues of intuitive decision mak- same professionals agreed, by more than 3 ing. Although the assertions of these authors to 1, that you can learn more from an infor- have little relevance for the prediction of mal discussion with job candidates and that human performance, the popularity of their you can ‘‘read between the lines’’ to detect work likely reinforces the common belief whether someone is suitable to hire. This that good hiring is a matter of experience apparent conflict between knowledge and and intuition. belief seems loosely analogous to the common practice of preferring brand name cold Implicit Beliefs remedies to store brand remedies containing the same ingredients. People know that the My colleagues and I (Lievens, Highhouse, & store brands are identical, but they do not De Corte, 2005) conducted a policy-capturing trust them for their own colds. study of the decision processes of retail man- Some might argue that the tide is turning. agers making hypothetical hiring decisions. Much has been written on the merits of evi- We found that the managers placed more dence-based management (Pfeffer & Sutton, emphasis on competencies assessed by 2006; Rousseau, 2006). This approach, unstructured interviews than on competen- much like evidence-based medicine, relies cies measured by tests, regardless of what on the best available scientific evidence to those competencies were. They placed more make decisions. At the core of this move- emphasis, for instance, on Extraversion than ment is ‘‘analytics’’ or data-based decision on general mental ability when Extraversion making (e.g., Ayers, 2007). Discussions of was assessed using an unstructured inter- number crunching in the arena of personnel view (and general mental ability was as- selection, however, are almost always lim- sessed using a paper-and-pencil test). The ited to anecdotes from professional sports opposite was found when Extraversion was (e.g., Davenport, 2006). Competing with assessed using a paper-and-pencil test and the analytical point of view are books like general mental ability was assessed using Reliance on intuition and subjectivity 335 an unstructured interview! Clearly, these correct the imperfections (rather than exac- managers believed that good old-fashioned erbate them). The court’s majority opinion ‘‘horse sense’’ was needed to accurately size in Gratz suggests that individualized meth- up applicants (see Phelan & Smith, 1958). ods of selection are more fair and reliable The reluctance of employers to use ana- than impersonal ‘‘mechanical’’ ones. Both lytical selection procedures is at least of these examples illustrate two implicit partially a reflection of broader misconcep- beliefs about employee selection: (1) people tions that the general public has about how believe that it is possible to achieve near- to go about assessing and selecting people perfect precision in the prediction of for jobs. Consider two high-profile policy employee success, and (2) people believe opinions on testing and selection in the that there is such a thing as intuitive expertise United States. in the prediction of human behavior. These implicit beliefs exert their influence on pol- d In 1990, the National Commission on icy and practice, even though they may not Testing and Public Policy (1990) issued be immediately accessible (Kahneman, eight recommendations for testing in 2003). I acknowledge that there are a num- schools and the workplace. Among ber of contextual reasons for resistance to those was the statement as follows: selection technologies, including organiza- ‘‘Test scores are imperfect measures tional politics, habit, and culture, along with and should not be used alone to make the existing legal climate (e.g., Johns, 1993; important decisions about individuals’’ Muchinsky, 2004). However, whereas con- (National Commission on Testing and textual issues are often situation specific, Public Policy, 1990, p. 30). The com- these are universal ‘‘truths’’ about people. mission’s chairman, Bernard Gifford of As such, understanding and studying them Apple Computer, commented, ‘‘We provides hope for overcoming user resis- just believe that under no circumstan- tance to selection decision aids. ces should individuals be denied a job or college admission exclusively based Irreducible Unpredictability on test scores’’ (‘‘Panel Criticizes Stan- dard Testing,’’ 1990). I recently came across an article in a popular d In the landmark Supreme Court deci- trade magazine for executives, purportedly sion on affirmative action at the Univer- summarizing the state of the science on sity of Michigan, Justice Rehnquist executive assessment (Sindelar, 2002). I concluded that consideration of race was struck by a statement made by the as a factor in student admission is author: ‘‘For many top-level positions, tech- acceptable—but it must be done at nical competence accounts for only 20 the individual level, with each appli- percent of a successful alignment. Psycho- cant considered

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