Counselor assessments of honest and deceptive clients

This dissertation applied the social psychological research on deception to a counseling situation. The social psychological literature on deception has demonstrated that judges are notextremely accurate in their evaluations of deception. The majority of investigators in this arena have reported that judges of deception have difficulty exceeding accuracy levels which could be obtained merely by chance. Furthermore, researchers have had difficulty identifying cues to deception which could benefit judges when making their assessments.It seems that the ability of counselors to detect deception would be an important facet of their repertoire--especially in situations where the counselor interacts with clients who may be more prone to lying (e.g.. substance abusers, perpetrators of family violence, criminals, and malingerers). If counselors are accurate in their determinations of client deception at levels of accuracy only slightly greater than chance (as the social psychological literature implies), then the entire assessment process might be undermined.This study was an examination of counselors' abilities to detect deception among their clients, the verbal and nonverbal cues to which counselors attend in making their assessments, and how client deception effects a counselor's psychological assessments. Four major findings were obtained. First, a factor analytic study revealed that counselors believe they attend to four general groups of verbal and nonverbal cues when suspecting a client of deception: (1) Stationary Cues of a Client's Face and Body, (2) Movements of a Client's Limbs, (3) the Quality/Style of a Client's Communications, and (4) the Content/Expression of a Client's Communications. Second, counselors in this study were accurate in their assessments of honest and deceptive clients at levels significantly greater than chance (85% overall accuracy). Third, this study was unable to identify cues which benefit counselors in making accurate assessments of client deception and/or honesty. Fourth, the accuracy of a counselor's psychological assessments were not affected by client deception. Results are discussed in relation to the social psychological literature on deception and implications for the profession of counseling psychology.Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance ServicesThesis (Ph. D.