The purpose of this research was to determine the precounseling effects of reputational cues on high school students 1 preferences for counselors and perceptions of the counselor's credibility and interpersonal attractiveness. In two separate but similar experiments, 485 students each saw one of seven experimental conditions presented on videotape. On three videotapes, high school students delivered positive, neutral, or negative reputational cues about a male or a female counselor. Three additional videotapes contained the same positive, neutral, or negative reputational cues and the counselor in a brief counseling session. One videotape featured only the counseling session. Students' preferences for and perceptions of the counselors were significantly different from each other in the positive, neutral, and negative reputational cue conditions. The addition of the counseling session following negative reputational cues resulted in much more positive preferences for and perceptions of the counselors. Reputational cues functioned as an important precounseling variable in that the cues strongly influenced students' preferences and perceptions prior to counseling.

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This study compared principal and self ratings of performance of guidance functions for practicing counselors who did not have teaching experience. The sample consisted of 43 counselors and their principals from throughout the United States. The ratings indicate better-than-average initial counselor acceptance by administrators, teachers, students, and parents with the degree of acceptance being greater after they had counseled for a while. Principal and self ratings differed significantly on initial acceptance by students and present acceptance by other counselors. Ratings of acceptance by both school psychologists and social workers were below average. There was no significant difference in counselor and principal ratings of counselor understanding of various school procedures and policies or of their ability to perform basic guidance activities. A majority of the principals who had worked with the counselors with non-teaching backgrounds indicated they would recommend the hiring of such a person to their school board.

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