Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a congruent and incongruent context in three types of counselor self-disclosure on subjects' responses and perceptions of the counselor as trustworthy, attractive, expert, empathetic and congruent. A 2 by 3 by 2 factorial design was used with 2 levels of congruence/incongruence and subject sex, and three levels of self-disclosure--intrapersonal, intra-probe, and self-involving. Forty-eight male and forty-eight female undergraduate volunteers from a regional university were randomly assigned to one of the six videotape vignettes of a counseling session where only the counselor was viewed and audible. Subject responses were subjected to content analysis for proportions of affect words, verb tense, subject and counselor-referent pronouns, and statements other than questions. Perceptions of the counselor were measured by the Counselor Rating Form and the empathy and congruence subscales of the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. The incongruent context produced significantly more subject affect and counselor-referent pronouns than the congruent context. Females produced significantly more references to the counselor than males. Self-involving disclosures produced significantly more affect than intrapersonal disclosures but similar amounts to intra-probe disclosure. No significant differences were found for verb tenses, subject-referent pronouns, or global reciprocity. All counselors in the congruent contexts received significantly higher ratings of trustworthiness, attractiveness, expertness, empathy, and congruence than counselors in the incongruent context. No significant differences in perceptions of the counselor were found for the main effect of type of self-disclosure technique. Post-hoc examinations of role expectations using independent t-tests revealed that subjects who expected a counselor to share positive and negative feedback to them in a therapy session rated the counselor as significantly more expert than subjects who did not have that expectation. No other significant differences were found between role expectations and perceptions of the counselor as trustworthy and attractive, or the amount of global reciprocity produced by the subjects.