Seven male and nine female graduate students in counseling psychology were asked to interview an actor and an actress whom they believed to be real clients. To half of the counselors, the players posed as well-to-do individuals, and to half they posed as working class individuals. They briefly mentioned their socioeconomic status at the beginning of the interview and then told the counselor about some of the problems they were experiencing. When the clients were presented as having lower status, a significant correlation coefficient existed between (a) the counselor's selfreported degree of personality similarity to the client and the counselor's self-reported liking for the client, and (b) the counselor's self-reported liking for the client and the counselor's estimate that the client would benefit from long-term counseling. No significant correlation coefficient existed for data collected during high-status interviews. These results suggest that counselors may unconsciously employ a different decision-making process for highand low-status clients.

One-hundred twenty-five doctoral students representing 20 Southern universities offering doctoral programs in counseling psychology/counseling and who had completed the Personality Research Form in a 1973 study by Randolph were followed up 3 years later to determine the functional specialty in which they spend the bulk of their professional time. The findings are interpreted as supportive of the position that personality needs predict functional specialty.

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