IMPACT OF CLIENT FEEDBACK ON SELECTED BEHAVIORS OF COUNSELOR TRAINEES IN INITIAL INTERVIEWS WITH DYADS OF DIFFERENT ETHNIC MIXES (SUPERVISION, RACE)

Several operant conditioning techniques have been shown to be useful as a means of training practitioners such as counselors. Only a few studies, however, have examined the effects of client feedback on counselor behavior. The present study as a preliminary study is concerned with establishing whether or not a given technique produces changes in keeping with feedback theory. This study also extends earlier findings that systematic client feedback can influence counselor verbal behavior. Rather than using trained clients to strengthen predetermined response categories as was done in previous studies, this study used naive clients who had been trained only to provide feedback by a mechanical-electrical signal device, which displayed both written messages and colored lights. Specifically, clients provided counselors with positive feedback for understanding statements and negative feedback for nonunderstanding statements during initial counseling interviews. Black and white counselors were paired with black and white clients to generate racially similar and dissimilar counseling dyads. A total of twelve hypotheses were generated and tested. Correlational and non-parametric statistics were used to estimate significance of obtained differences between treatments and groups of subjects. Despite some methodological difficulties within the study, the indications are that client feedback techniques do show promise for developing certain kinds of counselor skills. The findings did not show significant differences between black and white counselors in their response to client feedback produced by same and opposite race clients. In addition, no differences in feedback could be related to client ethnicity. The measured tendency of clients to respond in socially reinforcing ways also did not account for client differences in providing feedback, suggesting that feedback was more reflective of clients\u27 interpretation of counselor behavior rather than being a generalized pattern of social response