A sample of 136 undergraduate colleges students completed a questionnaire indicating the relative likelihood that they would turn to seven potential helpgivers with 11 personal or 5 career problems. For personal problems, the students indicated they would be more likely to turn to a close friend for help. For career problems, the students would be more likely to seek help from an academic adviser, instructor, close friend, or close relative. A total of 36% and 26% of the students said they would seek help from a professional counselor for a personal or career problem, respectively. The discussion focuses on (a) the extent to which these findings replicate previous research, (b) new insights obtained from this research, (c) possible explanations of these results suggested by the literature, and (d) implications for future research and practice.

Undergraduate student volunteers (N = 236) were randomly assigned to one of seven experimental groups or a control group to complete the Tendency to Seek Help questionnaire. In addition, members of the experimental groups completed modified versions of the Expectancies About Counseling questionnaire designed to measure their expectancies about a helping interview with seven campus help providers: advisor, career counselor, clinical psychologist, college counselor, counseling psychologist, peer counselor, and psychiatrist. Analysis of the data revealed (a) differences in the expectancies students held for the seven campus help providers, (b) differences in the students' tendency to seek help from the seven campus help providers for personal and career problems, and (c) relationships between the students' expectancies for a help provider and their tendency to turn to that help provider for assistance with a personal or career concern.

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