A persuasion scale that assesses counselor conviction and client agreement was used to rate 900 counselor statements. The 24 highest rated and 15 lowest rated persuasive statements were fed into a graphic level recorder. Differences in the graphs of the high-and low-persuasive statements indicated that loudness is a characteristic of persuasion.

Crisis centers and hotlines are relatively new approaches to the nation's growing concern for mental health problems. In order to provide information for those beginning a center, 253 centers were surveyed regarding five major aspects of crisis center operations: screening procedures for telephone listener‐counselor applicants, training procedures, services offered, types of calls received, and financing. Resources for further information and for better communication among centers are identified.

A counselor social reinforcement scale, based on the verbal conditioning model and the assumption that approval is a basic interpersonal reinforcer, and a counselor persuasion scale, based on the assumption that counselor conviction and client agreement with the counselor are the central aspects of counselor persuasiveness, were devised. The scales require the client to respond as if he has been reinforced or persuaded. To assess the immediate effect upon the client, 3-minute segments from counseling interviews were divided into client-counselor-client statement units. Using the scales and their supplementary rules, a sample of 900 such units from 35 counselors of a variety of theoretical orientations were reliably rated and rerated by six raters. Statistical and substantive characteristics of the scales are given and implications discussed.

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