Political Affiliation and Employment Screening Decisions: The Role of Similarity and Identification Processes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Roth, Philip L.; Thatcher, Jason B.; Bobko, Philip; Matthews, Kevin D.; Ellingson, Jill E.; Goldberg, Caren B.
• 署名单位: Clemson University; University of Alabama System; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Gettysburg College; University System of Ohio; Ohio University; University of Kansas; University System of Maryland; Bowie State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0000422
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 472-486
• 关键词: political affiliation; political affiliation similarity; cybervetting; Social media

摘要

Recent research in political science, along with theory in applied psychology, has suggested that political affiliation may be associated with substantial levels of affect and, thus, might influence employment decision-makers. We designed 2 experiments using social media screening tasks to examine the effects of political affiliation similarity on ratings of hireability. Our findings in both studies suggest that the identification (capturing positive affect) and disidentification (capturing negative affect) of a decision-maker with a job applicant's political affiliation were important variables that influenced perceived similarity. Consistent with the similarity-attraction paradigm, perceived similarity was related to liking and, in turn, liking was related to expected levels of applicant task and organizational citizenship behavior performance. Further, in both studies, political affiliation related variables influenced hireability decisions over and above job-relevant individuating information. Future research should continue to examine political affiliation similarity, particularly in light of its frequent availability to decision-makers (e.g., via social media websites).