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Therapeutic popularity and personality: Association between peer therapist nominations and the “Big Five” personality factors
Author(s) -
Engvik Harald
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9450.404125
Subject(s) - agreeableness , psychology , conscientiousness , popularity , extraversion and introversion , personality , psychological intervention , psychotherapist , clinical psychology , social psychology , interpersonal communication , association (psychology) , big five personality traits , psychiatry
The “Big Five” personality factors of three groups of psychology students differing in popularity as therapist among their peers were compared ( n =33). In agreement with earlier research, popular therapists are “agreeable”, “conscientious” and “stable”. However, popular therapists are not “surgent/extravert” and especially not “dominant” and “talkative”. No support was found for the hypothesis that similarity in “agreeableness” or dissimilarity in “surgency” (the complementarily hypothesis derived from interpersonal theory) predicts therapist popularity. However, similarity between client and therapist in “stability” was predictive of nominations for therapist. On the assumption that therapist popularity predisposes good therapeutic alliances, the results indicate that therapists agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability are relative to success in therapeutic interventions.