Forming clinical impressions during the first five minutes of the counseling interview

The influence of earlier formed clinical impressions of the client on later judgments within a counseling session were examined. It was predicted that redundancy in judgments of counselors' clinical impressions of the client after 5 min. and after 30 min, of an interview would be greater for counsel or-trainees who are (a) more self-confident about their judgments and (b) l ower in cognitive complexity, than other counselor-trainees. A stimulus tap e in which a male counselor conducted an initial 30-min. interview with a d epressed female client was shown to 80 counselor-trainees. At the 5- and 30 -min. marks, the tape was stopped, and the counselor-trainees indicated the ir clinical impressions of the client. These impressions included written t houghts and ratings of clinical characteristics of the client. Analyses sho wed that both their self-confidence and cognitive complexity were not assoc iated with differences in redundant judgments.