Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1991

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Educational Psychology

Major Professor

Marla P. Peterson

Committee Members

Shanette Harris, Sky Huck

Abstract

In the counseling process, the use of power as a therapist influence strategy has not been demonstrated. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether women and men prefer different types of power statements made by female and male therapists in an initial therapy session with male clients. One-hundred and fifty-three subjects (70 female, 83 male) read a counseling scenario, chose the response they preferred the therapist to make, and completed the Power Apprehension Scale (PAS) (Offerman & Schneider, 1985). Comparisons were made based on the gender of respondents who read the scenario, the gender of the therapist in the counseling scenario, the type of power/influence strategy selected by the respondents, and the respondents' scores on the PAS. Results of a chi-square analysis indicated that there were no significant differences between male and female respondents' preferences for expert power or transformational power, although both male and female respondents seemed to prefer expert power over transformational power. This was true regardless of therapist gender. Two analysis of variance procedures were used to determine whether there were interactions among sex of the respondent, sex of the therapist, and type of power statements, with the dependent variables being scores on the PAS (total score and other score). No significant interactions were found. Implications for further study are discussed in light of these findings and limitations regarding reliability of the Counseling Scenario Protocol are acknowledged.

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