Can we learn anything about interviewing real people from “interviews” of paper people? Two studies of the external validity of a paradigm

Abstract

Two investigations of the external validity of the paper-people analog are presented. One, a laboratory study, had advanced graduate students in industrial psychology make predictions about undergraduates based on test data plus an interview and also make predictions based on the test data (i.e., paper people) alone. Complete criterion data allowed traditional validity analyses to be carried out. The second study had highly experienced interviewers rate the paper credentials of people whom they had interviewed in the past. Judgments based on interviewees were compared with judgments made on paper people in the two studies. Sufficient data are presented to allow readers to draw their own conclusions concerning the representativeness of the paper-people paradigm. Our own conclusion is that the answer to the question raised in the title is “No”.