Reviewers and the Detection of Deceptive Information in Recorded Interviews

Abstract

Being able to detect deceptive information early is worthwhile for recruiters and other information-based organizational workers; unfortunately, people generally are not good at detecting deception successfully. We conducted an experiment to determine how successful reviewers can be at detecting deception in several types of dispersed interviews. The results indicated that reviewers were more accurate at detecting deceptive information than were participant interviewers; that a warning about deception's presence improved reviewers' detection accuracy; and that a warning did not have any effect on reviewers' number of false alarms between text and audio media. These findings imply that if reviewers are warned about the possible presence of deception, organizations might be able to minimize the chance of hiring high-risk job applicants. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.