THE INFLUENCE OF REFERRAL INFORMATION UPON PATIENT PERCEPTION IN A PSYCHOTHERAPY ANALOGUE

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Abstract
Social psychological studies of first impression formation have demonstrated that the communication of certain trait messages prior to actual meeting influences interpersonal perception upon meeting. Thus, being told an individual is “warm” or “cold” has been shown to affect the quality of interaction and perception in first impression formation. Extrapolating this finding to a normal population in a psychotherapy analogue study, it was found that the structuring of a tape recorded psychotherapist as “warm” vs. “cold” and “experienced” vs. “inexperienced” markedly influenced Ss' perceptions of him. Both “warm” and “experienced” led to greater attraction to the therapist, greater openness to his influence, and more favorable evaluations of his work. The present study extended this design to a psychotic patient sample. In addition, an unstructured control group was employed. Findings supported the effects of “warm” structuring on attraction to the therapist, and the effects of both “warm” and “experienced” structuring on openness to therapist influence. While the overall findings showed greater variability and less robustness than was true for the normal Ss, the interpersonal perceptions of psychotic patients were clearly influenced by these pre-meeting structuring messages. These findings appear to hold implications not only for the manner in which psychotic patients should most optimally be referred for psychotherapy, but also for procedures requiring interpersonal responsiveness within psychotherapy itself.

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