Word: polygraph
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...nation's estimated 3,500 examiners generally claim an accuracy rate of 90% for lie detectors or polygraphs. Critics put the figure much lower. In an upcoming book, A Tremor in the Blood, University of Minnesota Psychiatry and Psychology Professor David Lykken maintains that the most prevalent test is correct only two-thirds of the time, and, more critically, that it is far more likely to err when the person being tested is truthful. Lykken also argues that polygraph sensors-which monitor changes in breathing, pulse rate, blood pressure and the conductivity of the skin as the subject...
...names were gathered during a six-month Star investigation that included interviews with some 100 madams, prostitutes and witnesses. In assembling its list, the paper accumulated canceled checks, hotel records and sworn statements verified by polygraph tests. The purpose, Star Editor Stephen Isaacs wrote in a front-page apologia, was "to expose the hypocrisy of public persons performing illegal acts that they themselves have made illegal or have jurisdiction over...
Coors executives say they did not know such questions were on the tests, which were prepared by outside polygraph companies and used before 1975. Since then, they say, Coors has not permitted any questions concerning sex in its polygraph exams. But the union now wants Coors to stop using the tests, which the firm refuses to do. William Coors argues that the tests help reveal "whether the applicant may be hiding some health problem" and ensure that "the applicant does not want the job for some subversive reason such as sabotaging our operation." There is some basis for the company...
Because of widespread indignation over the tests among liberals, the strikers have many sympathizers. Gay rights groups say they have persuaded 100 bars in San Francisco to stop selling Coors. In Los Angeles, feminists have joined the boycott to protest the polygraph exams and Joseph Coors' backing of Phyllis Schlafly, the leader of the anti-Equal Rights Amendment forces. The Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women has asked ERA supporters to bring aluminum cans to a Coors recycling center and demand that the company pay for them with checks made out to the local...
...result, more and more companies are making job applicants take lie detector tests or written "honesty tests." A sample question: "Do you think a person should be fired if he cheats a company out of money several times each month on his expense account?" One Chicago firm of polygraph examiners, John E. Reid and Associates, which conducts both types of tests for business clients, reports that it will have administered more than 107,500 of them this year, compared with only 20,000 seven years ago. In the retail field, 35% to 38% of job applicants failed the test. People...