Three experiments were conducted to extend the Jones and Nisbett (172) hypothesis, concerning the divergent perspectives of observers and actors, to counselors observing clients. Following the notion developed by Storms (1973) and others that point of view is a salient fact-or in creating one's perceptual bias of observers, the present research presented subjects with a point of view similar to that of a counselor observing a client in a counseling interview. Subjects were shown three videotaped segments of two actors engaged in brief simulations of counseling interviews. One actor -was designated the "client." The second actor was designated, the "counselor." Subjects rated the "clients'" behaviors on an attributional questionnaire adapted from Storms' (1973) model. The key items required subjects to rate the degree to which "client" behavior was caused by "personal characteristics" of the client "characteristics of the situation". In the first experiment (Pilot of Study), forty-eight undergraduate students viewed only the "client" or the "counselor" in a series of three taped interviews. The experimental expectation that subjects viewing "clients" from the "counselors view" would rate their behavior as relatively more dispositionally than situationally caused was not confirmed. To test the hypothesis that these results were representative of the sample of naive subjects rather than artifacts of the experimental procedure, this group was compared to a group of doctoral level counselors. The counselors' ratings were significantly more dispositional than were the ratings of the naive subjects. It was suggested that the situational responses of naive subjects to the counselor-view tapes might be typical of naive persons observing a counseling interview. It was suggested that naive subjects identified with the more familiar role of the "client" thus adopting the client's perspective of the situation. Consequently, the tapes were judged effective for further experimental use.A second experiment, utilizing the counselor-view tapes, tested the hypothesis that attributional bias among student counselors may be reduced by special training. Two groups of student counselors were compared using a pretest-posttest design. One group received a treatment between testings labelled "Attending to Situational Cues". The second group served as a control, receiving no special treatment. No differences in degree of attributional bias were found between the two groups before or after treatment. It was concluded that the attributional bias of student counselors was resistant to the experimental treatment.In the third experiment a group of twenty experienced counselors rated the same counselor-view video tapes used in the previous experiments. It was expected that bias created by perceptual focus would be exhibited by subjects regardless of level of counselor training and experience. As expected, experienced counselors rated "client" behavior as caused relatively more by personal characteristics of the "client" than by characteristics of the situation. The attributional ratings of the experienced counselors, the student counselors and the naive subjects were then compared. There were significant differences between all groups. Experienced counselors exhibited significantly more dispositional bias than either student counselors or naive subjects. Student counselors exhibited significantly less dispositional bias than experienced counselors and significantly more than naive subjects. It was suggested that the attributional bias common to other observers increases among counselors with increased training and experience. Implications for the training of counselors were discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/180278 |
| Date | 03 June 2011 |
| Creators | Rowland, Kent |
| Contributors | Zimmerman, Jay S. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 3, iv, 75 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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