Fifty-one graduate business students at Florida State University played a computer game in which they functioned as employers interviewing applicants for three different jobs. After seeing job descriptions and resumes they asked three of the five applicants for each job six questions from a list of ten. If they asked the question "Have you ever missed three or more days of work for reasons other than routine illnesses?" they were answered in one of four ways. The "applicant" either stated "no," preferred not to answer, stated that they were in a hospital for three days after a family member died, or stated that they had spent two months in a state hospital. Answers to this question were randomly distributed independent of all other conditions of the interview. Subjects then ranked their top three choices for each job. / Only about half of the subjects asked the question about non-routine absences. The overall (chi)('2) for psychiatric history was significant (p < .05). Applicants who revealed a long term psychiatric history were significantly less likely to be hired than applicants who denied any psychiatric history (p < .05). These "long term" applicants were also significantly less likely to be hired than applicants who revealed a brief hospital stay after a family member died. Applicants who were evasive may have been somewhat less likely to be ranked first than applicants who denied psychiatric history, but this comparison was not significant. These evasive applicants were significantly less likely to be ranked first than applicants who revealed a brief hospital stay after a family member died (p < .05). / The data suggest that many employers who hold recent M.B.A. degrees will not be interested in an applicant's history of absences from work. If they do ask for this information, however, they use it. They tend not to hire applicants who report being in a state hospital for two months, or those who do not answer the question. Applicants reporting a brief hospitalization after a family death are still hired. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2529. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74567 |
| Contributors | HOLMES, LEONARD GEORGE., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 77 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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