Investigated the impact of therapist attire and seating arrangement on observers' perceptions of a therapist's attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness. Undergraduates (N=233) listened to an audiotaped interview while viewing a slide presentation. The casual attire/no desk setting elicited the highest attraction ratings, mediated by the…

Examined the relationship between preference for major counseling orientations and perception of counselor behavior in college students (N=77) naive about the process of counseling and psychotherapy. Results suggested that subjects' perceptions of the theoretically derived counseling approaches were not influenced by their personal preference for…

Studied stereotyped and androgynous college students' perceptions of therapists. Results show that androgynous subjects did not differ in their perceptions either as a function of disclosure level or experience. Stereotyped subjects perceived the high disclosing female nonexpert as significantly less trustworthy than the low disclosing nonexpert.…

Investigated client self-disclosure and client perception of counselors. Subjects rated counselors on intelligence and empathy, and while role-playing clients in therapy. Clients disclosed more to male counselors when counselors were high in status or attractiveness. Suggests the effect of counselor gender depends on an interaction with other…