Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1986

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Mark A. Hector

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of client-counselor problem-similarity on alcoholics' and non-alcoholics' perceptions of counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness. The alcoholic subjects were 34 white males currently engaged in inpatient treatment for alcohol dependency. The non-alcoholics were 31 white males who were either currently in, or had recently been in, outpatient counseling for a variety of personal problems. All subjects viewed the same video taped segment of a simulated counseling encounter that depicted treatment follow-up counseling with an alcoholic client. Subjects were randomly assigned to read one of three descriptions of the counselor which emphasized that the counselor had either (1) no history of a personal or alcohol problem, (2) previous history of counseling for a personal problem, or (3) previous history of counseling for an alcoholic problem. Subjects' perceptions of counselor social influence were assessed using the short version of the counselor Rating Form (Corrigan & Schmidt, 1983). Multivariate analyses of variance were performed to determine the effects of similarity and diagnosis on subjects' perceptions of counselor influence. Discriminant analysis was done as a follow up. Analysis of variance was used to assess the effect of similarity and diagnosis on expertness alone. The results indicated that (a) problem-similarity had no significant effect on non-alcoholics' perceptions but was significant for alcoholics, (b) counselor expertness alone was not significantly affected by similarity for either diagnosis group, (c) a significant overall interaction occurred between similarity and diagnostic group, and (d) all three influence dimensions taken together best accounted for the interaction and for the similarity effect in the alcoholic group. These findings were discussed in relation to counselor social influence with alcoholics, the structure of the social influence model, and future field research in substance abuse counseling.

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