Attitude Similarity, Attraction, and Decision-Making in the Employment Interview

Summary Actual and perceived similarity of interviewer to interviewee were examined for effects on interviewer's attraction to interviewee and his decision to accept rather than reject the latter for the job applied for. Data were derived from 614 interviews conducted by 24 interviewers, each of whom had final responsibility for selecting persons for jobs as life insurance salesmen. Actual and perceived similarity were fairly strongly related to both attraction and the decision to accept candidates for these jobs, perceived similarity more so than actual similarity.