Psychological Assessment Reports in Selection Decisions: The Role of Spatial Contiguity Principle

Abstract

Two ways of building psychological assessment reports were explored in two separate cvasi-experimental studies.In the first study, depending on their assigned experimental group, participants received either an integrated or a spatially distant type of report. They were subsequently invited to choose, based on the reports and a corresponding job description, the better candidate for a fictitious job, out of two options. The obtained results suggest that there is no significant difference between the two groups, c2(1) = 0.10, p = .921, fc = 0.009, p = 1.000. Thus, the way in which the reports were structured did not influence in any way the participants’ decision. For the second experiment, which had a similar approach, an eye-tracker was used. Participants were asked to solve the same task, while their eye movements were recorded. The only significant between-group difference was in regards to the integrated transitions the participants made between the graphic and the text, t(29) = 4.45, p = .000, d = 1.59. No significant difference was observed regardingthe number offixations or the duration of fixationsbetween the two groups. Based on these results, we argue that the two contrasted ways of building an assessment report do not influence the accuracy of decisions made.