When Counselors Confirm: A Functional Analysis

Abstract

To investigate the motivational moderators of behavioral confirmation in a psychotherapeutic environment, the authors performed a functional analysis on counselors' behavior. Counselors' concerns with diagnosis and rapport-building were identified as possible functions that might lead to expectation-confirming client behavior. Students randomly assigned to the role of either counselor or client engaged in a face-to-face, videotaped discussion. Prior to the discussion, counselors received an expectation suggesting that the client was either characteristically extroverted or introverted. Orthogonal to the expectation, counselors received either no specific discussion instructions, instructions to form a diagnosis, or instructions to establish rapport. Results indicated that only counselors motivated by diagnostic concerns elicited behavioral confirmation. Implications of therapeutic motivations are discussed, as is the usefulness of a functional approach to social psychological phenomena.