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

Abstract

Investigated client self‐disclosure and client perception of counselors (as expressed in counselor evaluations) as a function of the sex, attractiveness and status of the counselor, and the sex of the client. Counselor gender and attractiveness were established by means of stimulus photographs; counselor status was defined in terms of education and experience. Ss (160 college students) first rated their counselors on intelligence and empathy; they then completed Jourard's Self‐Disclosure Questionnaire while role‐playing clients in therapy. A four‐factor between‐Ss analysis of disclosure scores revealed that clients disclosed more of themselves to male than to female counselors when the counselors were high in either status or attractiveness. Results supported the hypothesis that the effect of counselor gender on client disclosure depends on an interaction of counselor gender with other counselor variables.

Therapist Physical Attractiveness: An Unexplored Influence on Client Disclosure

“…Participants in this study predicted that they would feel less comfortable disclosing material that is of a sexual nature than disclosing material that is more benign, such as a worthiness is related to the client's first impression of the therapist and that this impression is partially based on the therapist's attractiveness (Kunin & Rodin, 1982;Zlotlow & Allen, 1981). These initial impressions are made from information that is visually accessed and assessed.…”

Willingness to Seek Help as a Function of Self‐Disclosure and Problem Severity

“…According to the literature on self-disclosure, persons choose specific target persons to whom to reveal themselves. The most commonly identified target persons in past research on self-disclosure include same-sex/oppositesex friend (Brown & Helms, 1986, Jourard, 1961Sollie & Fischer, 1985), parents or mother or father (Brown & Helms, 1986;Jourard, 1961;Jourard & Lasakow, 1958), and professional counselor (Kunin & Rodin, 1982). These target persons seem to be similar to the sources from whom persons would choose to seek help for a particular problem.…”

“…Furthermore, one's spouse or romantic partner often receives more self-disclosure than does any other target person (Sollie & Fischer, 1985). Higher amounts of self-disclosure have been associated with high status and attractiveness (Kunin & Rodin, 1982). Trends in self-disclosure also have been associated with age, as one tends to disclose more to opposite-sex friends than to any other target person as one grows older (Jourard, 1961).…”

Target personality characteristics and self-disclosure: An exploratory study

“…While the effects of a person's relationship to identified targets (Pedersen & Higbee, 1969) and the effects of target physical attractiveness and status (Kunin & Rodin, 1982) have been investigated, no study has examined directly the influence of target personality on self-disclosure. Most research on target characteristics has been conducted in the context of psychotherapy.…”