Neophyte Counselor Attire and College Student Perceptions of Expertness, Trustworthiness, and Attractiveness

Abstract

Strong (1968) proposed that counseling can be viewed as a two-phase process. During the first phase, counselors use various techniques to enhance client perceptions of counselor expertness, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. These perceptions result in influencepower and have an effect on outcome. According to Strong, clients use reputational, behavioral, and evidential cues to assess counselor credibility and attractiveness. Previous research has indicated, however, that counselor attire is not used as an evidential cue when counselors display expert verbal and nonverbal behavior. It was hypothesized that counselor attire is an evidential cue for expertness, trustworthiness, and attractiveness of the inexperienced neophyte counselor-in-training. To test this hypothesis college students participated in group counseling sessions with either a formally or informally attired neophyte counselor. It was found that the informally attired counselor was perceived as more expert, trustworthy, and helpful.

Counseling Students' Decision Making Regarding Teaching Effectiveness: A Conjoint Analysis

“…Furthermore, the extent to which students perceive a faculty member as knowledgeable seems critical to their decision making about teaching effectiveness. Research in the area of perceived expertise may provide some guidance (Roll & Roll, 1984;Royse, 2001;Short, Moore, & Williams, 1991). Moreover, our results emphasize the importance for faculty of training and expertise in teaching methods, including delivery style.…”

Social influence research in counseling: A review and critique.

“…The results indicated that subjects reported a greater willingness to see a counselor when the counselor did not use profanity (Paradise et al, 1980), used positive self-involving statements (Andersen & Anderson, 1985), had a positive reputation (Littrell et al, 1987), was congruent in using positive verbal and nonverbal behaviors (Tyson & Wall, 1983), and used interpretations as opposed to summary statements (Dowd & Boroto, 1982). Conversely, no effects were found for different types of interpretative statements (Milne & Dowd, 1983), counselor attire (Roll & Roll, 1984), or counselor-client predicate matching (Dowd & Pety, 1982).…”

The Effect of Credibility on Perceived Power1

“…claimed that many other power bases may exist besides the five they proposed. attractiveness of a source of influence (Joseph, 1982;Roll & Roll, 1984), a source's prestige (Goldberg & Hartwick, 1990), and the history of past accuracy of a source (Birnbaum & Mellers, 1983). Factor analysis has also been used to generate the components of credibility.…”