Abstract

This study examined the effects of clients' attribution styles and their interaction with counseling verbal response styles on the evaluation of counselor's effectiveness. The subjects consisted of 180 korean young people (age 18 to 25). The subjects were assigned to one of the attribution styles according to the ASQ(Attribution Style Questionnaire)made by the researches One group was internal-internal atribution style for cause and solution of problems. The others were external-internal and external-external styles. They listened to analogous counseling session audiotaped and treated counselor's verbal response styles (directive, nondirective, eclectic), and then evaluated the counseling effectiveness. For the evaluation of the counseling effectiveness, the CRF-8( Counselor Rating Form-Short) and the SEQ(Session Evaluation Questionnaire) modified for koreans were used. The data was analyzed using a univariate and multivariate F test. The results showed the effects of clients* attribution styles. The internal-internal clients evaluated better the counselor and the session than the external-internal clients, who in turn evaluated them better than the external-external clients. The results also showed the interaction effects between the clients' attribution styles and the counselor's verbal response styles. These effects appeared partially in subdimensions of the CRF-S and the SEQ. The internalinternal clients evaluated better the counselor's attractiveness and the positivity of session in nondirective or eclectic response style than directive response style. They evaluated better only the counselor's attractiveness in nondirective response style than the others. The external-internal and external-external clients generally evaluated better the counselor and the session in eclectic response style than the others. The external-internal clients evaluated better the positivity of session and the external-external clients evaluated better the counselor's expertness in eclectic and directive response styles than nondirective response style. The results of this study imply some considerations that the internal-internal counselors try to understand the differences of attribution styles between the comselors themselves and the external-oriented clients and that the counselors try to use the appropriate verbal responses according to the clients* attribution styles.