[IPAC-List] Measuring Fear of Heights

[Oscar Spurlin]

Many places use a simulation in which they ask candidates to climb a ladder.
However as a climber I have seen many people with an expressed fear of
heights, gradually overcome this once they become comfortable with their
safety protection.  Thus since most people do not have a chance to
experiment with exposure I believe that this factor can be learned on the
job and it would be inappropriate to prescreen.

Oscar

Oscar Spurlin, Ph.D.
Industrial/Organizational Psychologist
Ergometrics Inc.
oscar at ergometrics.org
tel 425.774.5700
fax 425.774.0829

-----Original Message-----
From: ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org [mailto:ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org]
On Behalf Of Doverspike,Dennis
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 7:28 PM
To: Mark Hammer; ipac-list at ipacweb.org
Subject: Re: [IPAC-List] Measuring Fear of Heights

Mark,

As someone who has tested a large number of police and fire candidates over
the years, you would be surprised how many are afraid to climb ladders or
fire a gun and yet apply for safety service jobs (of course when I applied
for grad school in I-O psychology I had not idea what an I-O Psychologist
did, I still don't, and I find that a surprising number of our students do
not).

Over the years I have also encountered more people than I would like to
admit to who obviously have no interest in the job, and when you ask them
why they applied, reply that their spouse told them to get off the couch and
get a job.

That is the one great thing about the unstructured interview. Sometimes you
can just look a person in the eye and say - do you really want this job -
and they will reply No and that is that.

DD
________________________________________
From: ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org [ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org] On
Behalf Of Mark Hammer [Mark.Hammer at psc-cfp.gc.ca]
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 4:20 PM
To: ipac-list at ipacweb.org
Subject: Re: [IPAC-List] Measuring Fear of Heights

It's hard to imagine that anyone would apply to, and jump through the hoops
for, any position that involved an activity/task/working-context that was
aversive to them.  My money is on simple functional capacity.  There's more
people who THINK they can do a job, and can't do it nearly as well as they
think they can, than there are people who are afraid of some aspect of the
job, and go through with it.

SOMEBODY has to have some sort of virtual reality exercise that mimics
heights and then asks the participant to carry out the tasks while ignoring
convincing omnipresent and robust height information.  If they can do
similar sorts of things with driving or flight simulators, they ought to be
able to do it for working at heights.

And if no one has done it yet, THERE'S a market worth exploiting.

Mark Hammer
Ottawa


>>> "Wilkening, Kurt" <WilkeningK at HillsboroughCounty.ORG> 2010/06/25 

>>> 4:04 PM >>>

I wonder if they give these power line maintenance folks a phobia test
before hire? Heck, pilots, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEKbMMHAwm0


Regards,

Kurt Wilkening, Division Chief
Recruiting, Testing, and Certification
Hillsborough County Civil Service Board
601 E. Kennedy Blvd., 17th Floor
Tampa, Florida 33602
(813) 274-6764 (Direct)

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-----Original Message-----
From: ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org [mailto:ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org]
On Behalf Of Reindl, Kevin
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 3:19 PM
To: ipac-list at ipacweb.org
Subject: [IPAC-List] Measuring Fear of Heights

I thought this might be a good question to pose to the IPAC list, since I'm
sure many of the firefighter selection experts out there have encountered
this...

Does anyone do any type of assessment/test that measures someone's fear of
heights? We have been grappling with this for a while. We have some
positions at a few of our companies that require employees to climb
externally mounted stairs to the top of storage tanks (up to 200 feet).
We've considered a pre-employment assessment where we simply ask candidates
to actually perform this task. However, the concern for safety has always
been a barrier.

Any thoughts/advice/experiences would be greatly appreciated.


Kevin Reindl
Sr. People Research Advisor
San Diego Gas & Electric
Human Resources
8306 Century Park Court, CP41A
San Diego, CA 92123-1530
Tel: 858-654-1823
Fax: 858-654-1515
Email: kreindl at semprautilities.com<mailto:kreindl at semprautilities.com>

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