Issues common to both the process of building psychological theories and validating personnel decisions are examined. Inferences linking psychological constructs and operational measures of constructs are organized into a conceptual framework, and validation is characterized as the process of accumulating various forms ofjudgrnental and empirical evidence to support these inferences. The traditional concepts of construct-, content-, and criterion-related validity are unified within this framework. This unified view of validity is then contrasted with more conventional views (e.g., Uniform Guidelines, 1978), and misconceptions about the validation of employment tests are examined. Next, the process of validating predictor constructs is extended to delineate the critical inferences unique to validating performance criteria. Finally, an agenda for programmatic personnel selection research is described, emphasizing a shift in the behavioral scientist's role in the personnel selection process.

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This study explores the relative importance of trait-based personality constructs and a state-based job-specific affect construct for predicting job attitudes and withdrawal behaviors of incumbent customer service call center representatives (N = 150). Results based on three traditional indices of importance (i.e., squared correlation coefficients, squared standardized regression coefficients, and the product measure) yielded conclusions that were often inconsistent or ambiguous. In contrast, results based on two newer statistics (i.e., dominance and epsilon) were readily interpretable and virtually identical to one another. Overall, emotional stability and job-specific affect emerged as important predictors of various withdrawal criteria, relative to other personality variables.

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Research on employment interviews has not replicated the finding that people tend to seek information about others to confirm preinteraction beliefs. The present study used a free question generation methodology, rather than the previously used experimenter-provided list of questions, to assess the effects of preinterview impressions on questioning strategies. Student interviewers reviewed realistic resumes, application blanks, and job descriptions, which manipulated impressions of applicant suitability, prior to generating the questions they planned to use in an ensuing interview. Results indicated that both men and women adopted confirmatory questioning strategies in that they planned to ask a significantly greater number of questions seeking negative information of low-suitability applicants than of high-suitability applicants, regardless of applicant sex. This same confirmatory effect was observed for both men's and women's use of positive questions for same-sex applicants. However, male and female interviewers adopted disconfirmatory questioning strategies when interviewing applicants of the opposite sex. Potential explanations for these effects are discussed.The selection interview is one of the most commonly used procedures for collecting information about job applicants as a basis for hiring decisions. Evidence that interviewers' judgments generally lack reliability and validity (Arvey, 1979;Arvey & Campion, 1982) has led personnel researchers to try to understand the complexity of the interview process. No less than five models of the process have been articulated (Arvey & Cam-