Comparing Applicants’ Self-Presentation in Artificial Intelligence Versus Human Interviews: the Role of Opportunity to Perform and Contingency-Based Interactivity

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly embedded in employment interviews. Although AI interviewers may enhance the efficiency and standardization of personnel selection, their effects on applicants’ authentic and inauthentic self-presentation remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on impression management theory, this study examines how AI interviewers, relative to human interviewers, shape applicants’ self-presentation and why differences arise. Across four studies, we find that applicants facing AI interviewers perceive fewer opportunities to perform than those facing human interviewers. This reduced opportunity to perform, in turn, weakens not only exaggerated self-enhancement but also authentic self-presentation and authentic self-enhancement. These findings indicate that AI interviewers do not constrain deceptive impression management. They also dampen the expression of genuine strengths and self-relevant information. The results also show that contingency-based interactivity can mitigate this disadvantage by enhancing applicants’ perceived opportunity to perform and narrowing the gap between AI and human interviewers. By identifying both the constraining effects of AI interviewers and the design conditions that can reduce them, this study advances the research on AI interviews and offers practical implications for the design of more effective AI-enabled interview systems.