Every job interview begins or ends with a handshake, but does the interviewer learn anything from it?
That was the question explored in a study involving 140 undergraduates (plus several others who played the role of job candidates). Each subject sat behind a desk, executive-style, as one at a time five “candidates” walked into the room, in quick succession. The candidates, who were matched by sex with the interviewer, introduced themselves briefly then sat down at a nearby conference table. In half the cases, the greeting included a handshake.
With everyone still in the room, the interviewer then rated the candidates, relatively, on major personality traits: extroversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
Interviewers could rate extroversion reasonably accurately (earlier, the candidates had taken a personality test), but the handshake didn’t make a difference. The one instance in which it did make a difference was in gauging conscientiousness. That result, it turned out, was driven by men judging other men. The authors propose that this is because a well-executed handshake is itself a conscientious act, about whose subtleties males are tutored from an early age.
You wouldn’t want to make a hire based on a handshake, the authors say, but it may “predict whether someone will show up for their next appointment with you on time.”
(“The Influence of Handshakes on First Impression Accuracy,” Frank J. Bernieri and Kristen N. Petty, Social Influence, 2011 [Issue 2].)