title: Broverman's methodology reversed: assessing university students' perceptions of the gender-role characteristics of counselors.
abstract: This study examined university students' perceptions of which gender-role characteristics described helpful counselors for 137 nonmajors from an introduction to counseling class. Using a modification of the Broverman, et al. method (1970) and a modified version of their Stereotype Questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Participants indicated the characteristics of a helpful counselor, a helpful female counselor, or a helpful male counselor using 20 bipolar items of gender-role characteristics. t tests were applied to whether agreement of the pole considered most frequently was greater than chance (50%). Analysis indicated agreement on characteristics were most helpful in a counselor, and the direction of this agreement did not differ across the three conditions or as a function of participants' sex. Agreement was high for the individual gender-role characteristic items across conditions as two of 20 items showed significant differences. There was significantly more agreement that male counselors should not have their feelings easily hurt than female counselors and significantly less agreement that male counselors should be able to express tender feelings easily relative to a counselor of unspecified sex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, 3CEP/Box 30001, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001, USA. eadams@nmsu.edu
authors.forename: Eve M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McNeil
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dubsick
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D003376:Counseling / Q000193:education; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D013240:Stereotyping; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires