Effects of counselors' etiology attributions on college students' procrastination

Clients come to counseling with personal theories about their problems' eti ology. Counselors bring other hypotheses to the table. Counselors may be mo re helpful either when they accept clients' theories or when they provide n ew ones. A third option is that problem etiology is irrelevant in finding s olutions. This study tested the cognitive dissonance theory of interpretati ons (L. Levy, 1963; S. R. Strong, J. A. Welsh, J. L. Corcoran, & W. T. Hoyt , 1992), which argues that discrepant interpretations are most helpful. Eig hty two college-aged procrastinators (25 men, 57 women; ages 17-23, M = 18) interacted with a counselor who (a) agreed with them about procrastination 's causes, (b) disagreed with them, or (C) Said it was not important to spe cify a cause. Contrary to prediction, the 3rd condition led to more improve ment in participants' self-reported procrastination, This finding is discus sed in terms of possible responsibility attributions implicit in the 3rd co ndition.