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Employment interviewers (N = 120) and managers (N = 180) viewed videotaped interviews of four MBA applicants for a management trainee position and evaluated them on a dichotomous criterion. The changeover sequence design method was used to analyze for a contrast effect in the three counterbalanced treatment conditions. Three anchor stimuli preceded the target stimulus as in the traditional contrast paradigm. Results confirmed the presence of a contrast effect [F(2,596) = 34.57, p < .01). The findings indicated a greater contrast effect when averaged over the three anchor stimuli (w 2 = .065) than with the target stimulus (w 2 = .037), where it was also significant [F(2,294) = 5.91, p < .01]. Adaptation explains the diminished contrast effect over successive judgments. The contrast effect rivals applicant level (w 2 = .087) in importance. Researchers who have examined the impact of decision errors on the evaluations made in the interview setting have spent a substantial portion of their effort on the contrast effect (

Employment interviewers (N = 102) and managers (N = 128) viewed a videotaped interview of an MBA applicant for a management position. Participants were assigned to the cells of a 2 by 2 by 2 factorial design with two levels of participants (interviewer, manager), two levels of concurrent note taking (required, forbidden) , and two levels of interruption early in the interview (interrupted, control). The dependent variables were the score on a 25·item listening accuracy test based on the transcript of the interview, and the overall suitability evaluation of the applicant by the professionals. Results indicated no significant difference between participant groups and no significant effects on overall suitability judgments. Both the interruption and note taking had a significant impact on listening accuracy. The highest rate of accuracy (79%)was for the required note taking and no-interruption condition.Little is known about the accuracy of the information interviewers use when making overall suitability judgments. One recent study by Schuh (1978) showed that levels of accuracy range considerably even from a 12-min interview. Listening accuracy has been a neglected issue in interview research.Although the practice of note taking for study purposes by students is widespread, experimental evidence with respect to the efficacy of note taking for employment interviewers is not available. Even with student populations, the .experimental evidence is not without confusion. An early work (Crawford, 1925) showed that note takers had higher immediate and long-term recall scores than non-note takers . A recent work (Howe, 1970) reported that the probability of recalling an item that occurred in the learner's notes was about seven times that of items not in the notes. The results do not always favor the note taker, however. Ash and Carlton (1953) reported Significantly lower recall scores for note takers than for non-note takers during a ftlmpresentation. If there is an advantage in note taking, it is that the learners, in the process of taking the notes, "encode" the information by reorganizing the input data and putting it in their own words (Fisher & Harris, 1973), and the sensory motor process of recording the information also serves as an opportunity for rehearsal (Aiken, Thomas, & Shennum, 1975) .On the negative side, the process of note taking may interfere with memory . It has been known for quite some time that when no activity at all is demanded from a subject during a retention interval, very little forgetting occurs (Brown, 1958). Primary memory Requests for reprints should be sent to Allen J. Schuh,

Midterm grades of students were compared to the grade the student gave the professor on his teaching effectiveness. A one-way analysis of variance showed better than chance correspondence (?j 2 = .23). This tendency was entitled the animadversion error, and its importance ,in subordinate-supervisor ratings was discussed.