1985 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 53-63
This study examined the effects of a interview situation and topical focus on interviewee's verbal fluency. The hypotheses were as follows: 1. An interviewee's verbal behavior in an embarrassing topic, in contrast to the interviewee's verbal behavior in a neutral topic, is associated with a longer reaction time, more unfilled pauses, more filled pauses, more speech disturbances and less verbal productivity. 2. In a neutral topic, an interviewee will speak more fluently, i. e., with shorter reaction time, fewer unfilled pauses, fewer filled pauses, fewer speech disturbances and greater verbal productivity when in the face-to-face condition than in the screen condition. In an embarrassing topic, an interviewee will speak more fluently when in the screen condition than in the face-to-face condition.
The subjects were ninety-two male university students. This study manipulated interview situations (face-to-face condition and screen condition) and topical focus (neutral topic and embarrassing topic) in a 2×2 factorial design. Subjects were randomly assigned to each of the four experimental groups. They were interviewed one by one by male confederates who were also university students. Each subject was interviewed in one of two conditions: one with a screen separating an interviewer and an interviewee and one without a screen. The interview consisted of neutral questions in the area of occupation and embarrassing questions in the area of sexual matters.
The results generally supported hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 2 was partially confirmed. The results showed that the interaction between the interview situation and the topical focus was significant only in the verbal productivity. It was demonstrated that in the embarrassing topic the interviewee was more verbally productive when in the screen condition than in the conventional face-to-face condition.
