The Influence of Cognitive Strategy on a Personnel Selection Task in Public Sector Organization Setting

This research attempts to increase understanding of how cognitive strategy in a personnel evaluation task is influenced by task properties. The study was conducted using a 2×2 between-subjects design. Surface (information displays - graphs or tables) and depth (environmental predictability - Re = 0.7 or 0.9) task characteristics were manipulated. The judgment task was the hiring of a Transportation Security Officer (TSO) by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). 145 adults who live in the United States participated. The overall results of the hypothesis testing were mostly negative, but provided some mixed support. Only response time was significantly associated with surface task characteristics and level of correspondence between surface and depth task properties.