title: Forming clinical impressions during the first five minutes of the counseling interview.
abstract: The influence of earlier formed clinical impressions of the client on later judgments within a counseling session were examined. It was predicted that redundancy in judgments of counselors' clinical impressions of the client after 5 min. and after 30 min. of an interview would be greater for counselor-trainees who are (a) more self-confident about their judgments and (b) lower in cognitive complexity, than other counselor-trainees. A stimulus tape in which a male counselor conducted an initial 30-min. interview with a depressed female client was shown to 80 counselor-trainees. At the 5- and 30-min. marks, the tape was stopped, and the counselor-trainees indicated their clinical impressions of the client. These impressions included written thoughts and ratings of clinical characteristics of the client. Analyses showed that both their self-confidence and cognitive complexity were not associated with differences in redundant judgments.
authors.affiliation: University of Western Ontario.
authors.forename: D Y
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barak
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Uhlemann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors