Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
6-1983
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Major
Educational Psychology
Major Professor
Kathleen Davis
Committee Members
Mark Hector, Kenneth R. Newton, Lawrence M. DeRidder
Abstract
The primary purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of sex-role orientation, self-disclosure flexibility, and assertiveness on the counselor's ability to confront in the counseling interview.
It was hypothesized that androgynous counselors-in-training would make higher levels of confrontative counseling responses than those subjects who were undifferentiated or gender-typed and that counselors-in-training who were high in self-disclosure flexibility and assertiveness would make higher levels of confrontative counseling responses than those low in self-disclosure flexibility and assertiveness. It was also predicted that androgynous counselors-in-training would be higher in self-disclosure flexibility than those who were undifferentiated.
Forty-four female and 26 male students enrolled in seven Southeastern university Master's level counseling training programs participated in the study. Subjects were limited to those who were at the end of their first term of supervised counseling practicum. Subjects responded to the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI), the Self-Disclosure Situations Survey (SDSS), the Adult Self-Expression Scale (ASES), and formed counselor confrontative statements to ten witten segments of simulated counseling interviews. Scores on the BSRI were used to categorized subjects as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated. Self-disclosure flexibility (SDF) scores, or the degree of variability between disclosures, were derived from the SDSS and trichotomized. Assertiveness scores from the ASES were placed into high and low categories based on the median score. Four advanced graduate counseling students were trained to use the Confrontation Scale to rate levels of confrontation shown in the subjects' responses to the written simulated interviews.
Two two-way and one one-way analyses of variance were used to test the hypotheses. Since no significant differences were found, it is suggested that further research be directed toward investigating training methods, the feelings counselors experience when confronting, and the interpersonal influence of confrontation.
Recommended Citation
Patton, Sarah Carolyn, "The relationship of counselor confrontation responses, androgyny, self-disclosure, flexibility, and assertiveness. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1983.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/13116