Interviewing Techniques: Significance in Psychology - Detailed Report

This report delves into the realm of interviewing techniques within the field of psychology. It begins by defining interviewing techniques as the methods used by interviewers to assess an individual's skills and psychological state through effective communication. The report then explores various interviewing techniques, including structured and unstructured approaches, highlighting how interview structure influences the process. It emphasizes the role of interviewer attitude, cultural sensitivity, and socio-economic awareness in fostering a productive interview environment. Furthermore, the report discusses essential interviewing skills, such as the use of probes, reassuring statements, and the avoidance of judgmental language. It stresses the importance of the interviewer's tone and responses in maintaining a comfortable and productive interview flow, and it underscores the impact of empathy in establishing a strong connection with the interviewee. The report concludes by summarizing the significance of effective interviewing techniques in generating qualitative outcomes and extracting the required information from interviewees, emphasizing the importance of using well-crafted questions.

Chapter 8: Interviewing Techniques

INTRODUCTION
Interview techniques are known as the practi
ces which are used by the interviewers to co
nduct an interview.
These techniques play a significant role in as
sessment and evaluation of skills and psycho
logy of an individual.
The presentation will discuss the effective in
terviewing techniques and their significance
in the field of psychology.

INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
•The interviewing techniques are the approaches used by interviewers or the psy
chologists to explore the skills or thoughts of an individual through a discussion
or effective communication.
•The psychologists use interviewing techniques to assess the psychology and me
ntal health of their patients.
•The interaction of psychologists with their clients is very significant and critical
as it can also have adverse impact on the individuals suffering from critical ment
al health issues.

FACTUAL DESCRIPTION
Impact of interview structure on interviewing techniques
 In structured interview a well defined and fix set of questions is follo
wed while in an unstructured interview interviewer does not follow an
y specific guidelines.
 The interviewers who tend to adopt highly stable data are less flexible
and thus follows structured interview.
 On the other hands psychologists or the individuals who desire to rece
ive maximum response and flexibility from the interviewee follows un
structured interviews.

Role of attitude, culture and socio-eco
nomic factors
 The positivity, understanding, acceptance and genuine behaviour of inte
rviewers is one of the major factor which can trigger the good response
from the interviewee.
 The interviewers must communication in a way which is not judgement
al or biased as it can prohibit interviewee to open up freely.
 During the interview process interviewers must also assure that they res
pect the cultural diversity and socio-economic factors of the other perso
n.

Interviewing skills
• Apart from the communication skills interviewers can also use pr
obes or additional support form individuals when interviewing ch
ildren or mentally retard patients.
• To improve the interaction reassuring statements and mutual inte
raction must be involved in the interview process.
• Interviewers must avoid the use of hostile statements, false reass
urance and judgemental or problem statements.

Significance of tone and response of i
nterviewer
• The interviewers must have soft tone so that interview proce
ss remains comfortable and productive else interviewee may
hesitate to answer.
• The response of the interviewers including transitional phras
es, restatements, phrasing and understanding are essential fo
r continuous and productive flow of the interview process.

Effect of empathy statements
•Empathy or the better understandin
g of the response is one of the basic c
haracteristics of interviewing process.
•Instead of merely restating the state
ments of interviewee interviewers m
ust show natural and powerful empat
hy so that psychologists can have mu
tual connection with the client.

SUMMARY
•It can be summarised that for generating quali
tative outcomes from the interview effective int
erviewing techniques must be used in the settin
g.
•It can also be concluded that interviewers mus
t use questions which helps to extract the requir
ed response from the interviewee.

REFERENCES
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