EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED ETIOLOGY ATTRIBUTION SIMILARITY ON CLIENT RATINGS OF COUNSELOR CREDIBILITY

An experimental design was used to test the hypothesis that clients wh o perceived their counselors as holding etiology attributions similar to their own would rate their counselors' credibility higher than clie nts who perceived their counselors as holding dissimilar attributions. Forty undergraduate volunteers participated as clients in counseling role-plays with 11 graduate student counselors. At the end of the 3-se ssion counseling analogue experience, each client was exposed to a moc k counselor questionnaire on which the counselor's etiology attributio ns were manipulated to either agree or disagree with the client's etio logy attributions. Results indicated that clients in the similarity of etiology attribution condition rated their counselors to be more cred ible sources of help than did clients in the dissimilarity of etiology attribution condition.