Environmental cueing and therapist demand as facilitators of interview self-disclosure

This study is a 2 X 4 factorial design investigating the effects of (1) four levels of symbolic environmental manipulation (artwork) and (2) two conditions of therapist demand characteristic (claiming or disclaiming of the artwork as reflective of personal taste) on the self disclosing behavior of 80 female college freshmen in an intake interview-analogue. The artwork manipulation consists of (1) an erotic art condition with four prints, (2) a mixed-content condition with one thematic print in each of the areas of sexuality, aggression, family concerns, and achievement, (3) an abstract art control condition with four prints, and (4) a no-art control condition. Dependent measures include: (1) the scaled intimacy value of the questions selected by the subjects, (2) the duration of actual self-disclosure, and (3) an intimacy/breadth rating of transcripts of taped actual disclosure. A main effect of artwork on self-disclosure was predicted specifically for sexual disclosure in the erotic artwork condition and generally for disclosure on all topics in the mixed-content condition, as a result of the cueing effect of the artwork stimuli. An interaction of artwork and therapist demand characteristic was predicted also as an interactive result of cueing and reciprocity of non-verbal disclosure by the interviewer, through the claimed personal symbolic artwork. In addition, in conditions in which artwork cues are present, subjects were predicted to be more comfortable disclosing and more likely to attribute their disclosure externally, a main effect of artwork on attribution and comfort. An interaction of artwork and therapist demand was also predicted such that subjects with relevant artwork claimed by the interviewer would report ·maximum comfort and external attribution. The hypotheses were not confirmed, and no significant results were found. Subjects apparently found the interviewer herself more salient than environmental cues. Subject comfort was correlated with perceived comfort of the interviewer and external attribution of self-disclosing behavior to interviewer traits.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Year dc:date.issued

1981

Author dc:creator

• Brake, Martha Jane

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/74185

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/74185