The issue of confirmatory bias in counselors' clinical hypothesis testing was explored. Previous research has suggested that counselors are unbiased when constructing questioning strategies to test a client hypothesis. This study proceeded on the assumption that questioning is only the beginning of the hypothesis-testing process. In 2 experiments the way counselors remembered information about a client was examined, and information from a client narrative was selected. In Experiment 1 experienced counselors remembered more confirmatory than disconfirmatory information, even when the report they reviewed contained more disconfirmatory information. In Experiment 2 counselors in training selected more confirmatory than disconfirmatory information, even when the report they reviewed contained more disconfirmatory information. Conclusions of the study were the following: Counselors need to be aware of these biases and counselor education should explicitly train counselors to avoid them.We do not first see, then define, we define first and then see.-Walter Lippmann What a man sees depends upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see. In the absence of such training there can only be, in William James's phrase, a 'blooming buzzin' confusion.-Thomas KuhnThe way in which counselors test clinical hypotheses about their clients and the factors that influence the objectivity of their hypothesis testing are important areas of counseling research. As a scientist and practitioner, the counselor is thought to develop a conceptual model of the client and to employ a hypothesis testing approach to evaluate the accuracy of this model. In numerous theoretical papers (e.g.

The purpose of the two experiments reported in this article was to test the robustness of the findings of Strohmer and Newman (1983) concerning the lack of confirmatory bias in the way that counselors collect data to test their hypotheses. In Experiment 1, counselors were asked to develop their own clinical hypothesis to determine whether investment or involvement in the hypothesis may influence counselors to be biased in the questions they ask. In Experiment 2, counselors were given a hypothesis to test that was consistent with their self-schema, to determine whether bias toward confirmation occurs when the counselor is testing a hypothesis that is also an important part of their own self-concept. Confirmatory basis in hypothesis testing was not supported in either experiment. The results support Strohmer and Newman's (1983) position that the bias toward constructing confirmatory questioning strategies reported in social judgment literature (Snyder, 1981) may be more a function of the methodology used than of a strong tendency for individuals to be confirmatory.The scientist is not a paragon of reason. In fact, he may often be expediently illogical and prejudicially confirmatory. (Mahoney, 1976, p. 161)

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