Interview anxiety narrative validation for a virtual reality-based study

When conducting a Virtual Reality-based study one important feature that needs to be assured is valid is the narrative context. Our objective was to validate a job interview anxiety provoking narrative. One experiment with a between-subject design was conducted. Participants were instructed to read a job interview-context narrative and then self-report the level of anxiety experienced. Results indicated that the narrative describing the individual's parents' economic and financial difficulties as well as an ambiguous description of the organization's physical characteristics elicited significantly higher levels of state anxiety. Research findings suggests the potential influence the narrative may have on interview anxiety and, most importantly, evidence the validity of instruments necessary for a Virtual Reality-based methodology. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.