Clients' perception of the counselor: The influence of counselor introduction and behavior.

Abstract

The relative influence of counselor behavior (as defined by levels of the facilitative core conditions) and of counselor status (as indicated in an introduction) on subjects' perceptions of the counselor was examined. Subjects (N = 120) viewed a videotaped segment of one of two staged interviews after receiving an introduction to a high-status or low-status counselor or no introduction at all. Subjects then rated their perceptions of the counselor on three instruments, which contained six scorable factors: Counselor Warmth, Counselor Competence, Counseling Climate, Counselor Comfort, Client Satisfaction, and General Counselor Appeal. Counselor behavior produced a main effect on each of the six dependent measures, while counselor introduction produced a main effect on only Counselor Competence and Counselor Comfort. Explanations and implications of these results are discussed.

A Review of the Interpersonal Influence Process in Counseling

“…There is some evidence that suggests that the perceptions of counselor expertness in these studies may be limited to certain counselor characteristics. Scheid (1976) found that the status of the counselor only had a significant effect on two variables, perceptions of counselor competence and counselor comfort; status did not seem to influence perceptions of the counselor in general.…”

“…Several investigations examined the combined effects of using titles in conjunction with prestigious information (the third source of perceived expertness) in the initial description or introduction of the counselor. One finding appears quite consistently in studies that combine titles with prestigious information: when the same counselor is introduced with expert credentials as opposed to inexpert credentials, the counselor is viewed as being more expert (Atkinson & Carskadden, 1975;Claiborn & Schmidt, 1977;Greenberg, 1969;Jackson & Pepinsky, 1972;Hartley, 1969;Merluzzi, Banikiotes, & Missbach, 1978;Scheid, 1976;Spiegel, 1976;Strong & Schmidt, 1970a). There is some evidence that suggests that the perceptions of counselor expertness in these studies may be limited to certain counselor characteristics.…”

The Effects of Feedback Self-Consistency, Therapist Status, and Attitude Toward Therapy on Reaction to Personality Feedback

“…We manipulated therapist status by providing each participant with a randomly assigned description of the therapist who-we pretendedhad provided him or her with the personality assessments, which portrayed the therapist as either high or low in status by describing educational and professional achievements and clinical experience. We based these descriptions on previous research on the effects of therapist status (e.g., Claiborn & Schmidt, 1977;Lasky & Salomone, 1977;McCarthy, 1982;Scheid, 1976), where status was also manipulated according to clinical experience, education levels, and professional achievements. Thus, for example, on the one hand, we described the high-status therapist as "a practicing psychologist for 29 years" and a "past president" of an association of clinical psychologists-"one of the highest honors a psychologist can receive."…”

“…her as an effective agent of psychological change (e.g., Scheid, 1976). Highstatus therapists are a case in point of expert power (French & Raven, 1959), indicating the possibility that clients would perceive them as more credible and competent than low-status therapists.…”

The interactive effects of counselor gender, physical attractiveness and status on client self-disclosure

“…Browning (1'366) reported that when counselors were given the titlc "PhD psychologist" thcy wcre perceived by Ss as high-status individuals. When counselor status was established by means of introduction (PhD psychologist vs. graduate student), Scheid (1976) found that high-status counselors were perceived as more compctcnt and comfortable in their roles. Brooks (1974) reported that malcs and females responded differently to counselor status; males disclosed more to high-status than to low-status counselors, whereas fcmales showcd a tendency to disclose more to low-status than to high-status counselors.…”