Behavioral cues to counselor expertness.

Abstract

Two male and 2 female counselors at each of 3 levels of training and experience conducted an initial interview with a female confederate client who presented the same role to all counselors. Videotapes of these interviews were viewed by 120 undergraduates who rated the counselors' expertness, indicated counselor behaviors that contributed to their judgments, and rated their willingness to refer close friends to the observed counselors for various concerns. Only individual counselor performance contributed significantly to rated expertness. Data do not support those of L. D. Schmidt and S. R. Strong , which show an inverse relationship between training/experience and rated expertness. Willingness to refer was differentially related to rated expertness, depending on the client concern.

The Invisible Client

“…Internal Factors. The following internal factors have been associated with clients who prematurely depart from counseling: high counselor ethnocentricity (Yamamoto, James, Bloombaum, & Hatter, 1967); counselor disinterest in client's concern (McNair, Lorr, & Callahan, 1963); counselor dislike for client (Caracena, 1965); counselor's expectations of client improvement (Goldstein, 1960); counselors' behavioral style such as appearing interested, organized, attentive, leaning forward, head nodding, and eye contact (Dell & Schmidt, 1976;Lacrosse, 1975;Schmidt & Strong, 1970); and counselors' degree of self-disclosures (Hoffman-Graff, 1977;Merluzzi, Banikiotes;& Missbach, 1978;Nilsson, Straussberg, & Bannon, 1979).…”

Acting the Role of a Counselor

“…Strong and a number of his colleagues (Dell, 1973;Dell & Schmidt, 1976;, 1971Strong, 1968Strong, , 1970Strong, , 1978Strong & Dixon, 1971;Strong & Matross, 1973;Strong & Schmidt, 1970a, 1970b developed and empirically tested a two-stage model of helping based on social influence theory (a social psychological perspective). Stated simply, Stage I involves the establishment of a power or influence base for the counselor.…”

Use of structural equation modeling in counseling psychology research.

“…Although some empirical support for social influence theory has been generated, findings are inconsistent and there is much confusion about the relation between client-counselor interaction and client change (Corrigan et al, 1980). Problems include (a) validation of the tripartite structure of counselor characteristics; (b) the possibility of a legitimacy effect (Corrigan et al) in which attributions of expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness may be based on the socially-sanctioned counselor role, rather than from specific cues displayed by a particular counselor; (c) specification of the power bases (expert, referent, and legitimate) in which counselor characteristics are rooted (Strong & Matross, 1973); (d) failure to distinguish between actual and perceived counselor characteristics (Dell & Schmidt, 1976;Heppner & Heesacker, 1983); (e) focus on client and counselor perceptions of change rather than actual behavioral change (Zamostny, Corrigan, & Eggert, 1981;Heppner & Dixon, 1978), with very few studies (e.g., Heppner & Dixon;Merluzzi, Merluzzi, & Kaul, 1977) measuring client change through observational rather than selfreport measures; and (f) little attention to the influence attempt, although there have been recent studies of the effects of message discrepancy (Claiborn, Crawford, & Hackman, 1983;Claiborn & Dowd, 1985) and level of client disclosure (Corrigan et al, 1980) in client attributions and change.…”