This study intended to examine effects of counselor's empathy and perceived cultural similarity toward client on impression-formation about fictional client. Fictional client was presented in the form of scenario, and the respondents assessed the degr...
This study intended to examine effects of counselor's empathy and perceived cultural similarity toward client on impression-formation about fictional client. Fictional client was presented in the form of scenario, and the respondents assessed the degree of perceived cultural similarity. Empathy was assessed with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983), and impression-formation about client was assessed with the Scale of Counselor's Impression-Formation about Client (Choi & Cho, 2002).
A total of 249 counselors, counselor-trainees, and students enrolled in counseling psychology programs were included in this study, and two-way ANOVA was performed with the exclusion of 53 respondents who rated five or six for the cultural similarity on a ten-point Likert-type scale. Results showed that there was no significant difference between the high-empathy group and the low-empathy group, and the high-perception group of cultural similarity and the low-perception group of cultural similarity respectively regarding the personal impression-formation while results regarding the therapeutic impression-formation showed that the high-empathy group and the high-perception group of cultural similarity formed more positive impression than the low-empathy group and the low-perception group of cultural similarity respectively. However, results for the subfactors were not consistent. As for empathy, the effect of cognitive domain on impression-formation was rather different from that of affective domain. Finally, implications and limitations of this study were discussed.