Interviewing Techniques Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards related to interviewing techniques.

Structured Interview

A narrow and restricted type of interview where the interviewer asks a set of prepared questions, directing and controlling the interview.

Unstructured Interview

A broad and unrestricted type of interview where the interviewer builds off the interviewee's information without a prepared list, often used for intake or diagnostic interviews.

Social Facilitation

The tendency to act like the models around us; interviewees may mirror the interviewer's demeanor.

Interpersonal Influence

The degree to which one person can influence another, related to interpersonal attraction.

Interpersonal Attraction

The degree to which people share a feeling of understanding, mutual respect, similarity, and the like.

Judgmental/Evaluative Statements

Statements that evaluate the thoughts, feelings, or actions of another person, which should generally be avoided unless conducting a stress interview.

Probing Statements

Asking 'why' questions that tend to place others on the defensive and demand more information than the interviewee wishes to provide voluntarily.

Open-Ended Question

A question that cannot be answered specifically, giving the interviewee wide latitude in choosing the topic they feel is important.

Close-Ended Question

A question that brings the interview to a halt, violating the principle of keeping the interaction flowing; requires the interviewee to recall something.

Verbatim Playback

Repeating the interviewee’s last response, generally leading to an elaboration of the interviewee’s previous response.

Paraphrasing and Restatement

Capturing the meaning of the interviewee’s response, with paraphrasing being more similar to the original statement and restatement being the interviewer's interpretation.

Summarizing

Pulling together the meaning of several interviewee responses, involving verbatim playback, paraphrasing, and restating.

Clarification

Serves to clarify the interviewee’s response, communicating a degree of understanding.

Accurate Empathy

Elicits self-exploration by showing people we understand them, encouraging them to talk about or explore themselves at deeper levels.

Understanding Statements

Interviewers begin with an open-ended question followed by understanding statements that capture the meaning and feeling of the interviewee’s communication.

Mental Status Examination

Used primarily to diagnose psychosis, brain damage, and other major mental health problems by evaluating a person in terms of variables related to these problems (appearance, attitudes, behavior, emotions, thought processes, etc.).

Halo Effect

Tendency to judge specific traits on the basis of a general impression, impairing objectivity and biasing the judgment process.

General Standoutishness

Tendency to judge on the basis of one outstanding characteristic—usually physical appearance.

Cultural Distortion

Can be found in cross-ethnic, cross-cultural, and cross-class interviewing; results from ignorance of cultural differences.

Interview Reliability

Refers to the stability, dependability, or consistency of test results; critical questions center on inter-interviewer agreement.