In: Psychology
Why is the interview, in general, such a poor measurement device for inferring personality traits
Interviews are used as a common tool for obtaining information about a person or inferring personality traits. Although interviews help assess a person’s communication skills and ideologies, they are not very reliable for ascertaining personality traits. Interviewers often attribute a person’s behavior during an interview to his or her personality. They rarely take into account the situational factors. They consider every action of a person to be a result of an underlying personality trait. The open-ended questions in an interview may be informational, but they cannot help exactly determine the personal characteristics of a person. People try to exhibit their best behavior during interviews and may try hard to conceal their weaknesses. They may even restrain from sharing their actual beliefs due to fear of losing out a job or disqualifying for a test. Therefore, an interview is not the best medium for inferring personality traits.