Publication Date

8-1978

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Sam McFarland, Clinton Layne, David Shiek

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

The California F Scale differentiated groups of low-, moderate-, and high-authoritarian undergraduate students who participated in a study of subject preference for either a directive or non-directive therapy. The subjects read specially prepared descriptions (directive) and Client-centered were asked their preference for of Rational Emotive Therapy Therapy (non-directive) and a therapy. their perceptions on and consideration for therapist behavior human motivation. therapy. A factor They also gave 14 dimensions of and style and therapy assumptions about All three groups chose client-centered analysis of the 14 perception scores yielded two factors: a hale "good-guy"-similarity - competent factor and a directive-evaluative factor. These two factors were not correlated for the high and moderate authoritarian groups. For the low-F group, the factors were negatively correlated. Additional analysis showed that the perception factors were unrelated to therapy preference for the high-F subjects. For the low- and moderate-F groups Factor I was significantly related to preference. Factor 2 contributed only a marginally small amount of variance to the low authoritarians. A factor analysis of the 14 consideration scores revealed two factors: therapist capability - similarity - attraction and therapy assumption - problem causation. There were no significant differences across the three groups in the consideration they gave these factors. The discussion focused on a comparison with Kraus' study, the implications for further research and the limitations of this investigation. The sole use of authoritarianism as a matching criterion was questioned.

Disciplines

Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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