The Standard Experimental (Stress) Interview as Used in Interaction Chronograph Investigations

Abstract

The purpose of the standard experimental interview is to obtain an adequate sample of the behavior of an individual that will predict with a high degree of accuracy how he or she will act in everyday life. In order to do this effectively, it has been necessary to create a pattern of interviewing that will yield consistent results no matter who conducts the interview. The fundamental importance of completely standardizing the interviewer's behavior accounts for the detail in which instructions are given for the conduct of the interview. The necessity for standardization became evident after a long series of experiments had been conducted whose purpose was to develop means of overcoming the wide variations in the results obtained from the same person by different interviewers. The fact that an individual reacts differently to different interviewers is hardly surprising, but its significance is insufficiently appreciated. It is the consequence (often unconscious) of the interviewer's own personality which creates a style of interviewing sympathetic to it, whatever theoretical constructs say as to technique. For even though a person may have learned one of the several techniques of interviewing commonly taught at the present time, it can easily be demonstrated that, even though the same words are used, he will not obtain the same results as another interviewer with a different personality.