Halberstam, Batsheva (4/12) The relationship between self-construal and therapist preference: An analogue study (Philip Wong, Ph.D.; Lisa Samstag, Ph.D.; Joan Duncan, Ph.D.)
The aim of this study was to determine whether individuals prefer a therapist with the same value system, or self-construal, rather than the same ethnicity/race alone. Participants were 166 college students attending a private university in a large metropolitan area, and represented a variety of ethnicities. They took part in the research as part of the requirements for completing an Introduction to Psychology course. The study employed an analogue design, as each participant was asked to watch a video of a staged therapy session in which the therapist expressed either collectivist or individualist values. After watching the video, the participants were asked to rank which statements of the therapist were the "most" and "least" appealing, using a Q-sort formation. Results demonstrated no significant preference for statements that matched participant's own self-construal (individualist vs. collectivist). Furthermore, no significant preference was demonstrated for any of the therapist's statements, such as those indicating racial differences between the client and therapist, or general empathic statements made by the therapist. However, there was a significant effect for three statements in the collectivist condition video, which were consistently preferred over their individualist video counterparts, regardless of the participant's own self-construal. Implications of the results for psychotherapy process-outcome research and training are discussed.
