Icelanders’ and U.S. Nationals’ Expectations about Counseling

Abstract

This study compared counseling expectations of Icelandic and U.S. college students, investigated counseling expectations as a function of sex, and explored the relationship between counseling expectations and Holland’s typology. It was discovered that the Icelandic students expected greater expertise from the counselor than did the U.S. students and the U.S. students expected the counseling conditions to be more facilitative than did the Icelandic students. Also, women, as compared with men, expected counseling to be more facilitative of change and expected to be more personally committed to the counseling process, whereas men expected more counselor expertise. A canonical correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between counseling expectations and Holland’s Social and Realistic personality types for the U.S. students and Holland’s Social type for the Icelandic students.