Abstract

The present study was to investigate if counselor gender influences different effects on the counseling evaluations for the counselor's self-disclosures. Five hundred and twenty (256 males and 264 females) subjects were assigned to one of the twelve groups composed of 3x2x2 factorial design, three levels of self-disclosing, counselor gender and observer's gender. After listening a counseling tape, the subjects answerd to the questionnaires : Counseling Rating Form(CRF), Session Evaluation Questionnaire(SEQ), Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ). As anticipated, the results supported the hypotheses that there would be interaction effects between counselor gender and counselor self-disclosing on the counseling evaluations. The male counselor's low-intimacy self-disclosing resulted in positive evaluation by the observers, compared to no-disclosing. However, his high-intimacy self-disclosing did not increase the scores of the dependent variables. On the contrary, the female counselor's low-intimacy self-disclosing did not result in better evaluation than the no-disclosing session, however her high-intimacy self-disclosing finally resulted in better evaluation. These results are consistent with the general findings by the social psychologists that our social perception of male-female interactions is related to the discloser's gender. It was discussed that our sex-role stereotypes may be the intermediate factor interpreting the self-disclosing in different ways.