GENDER BIAS: THE LOCH NESS MONSTER OF THE THERAPY FIELD (DECISIONS, ISSUES, PROGNOSIS)
Abstract
This research project examined the relationship between client gender and therapists' judgments concerning treatment prognosis. To assess this relationship, a multidimensional scaling procedure was utilized. Multidimensional scaling procedures are effective tools in studying human decision making processes, because they are able to delineate the cues to which the individual attends. To assess the effect of client gender on therapists' judgments, therapists were presented with all possible pair combinations of eight vignettes. Each of the vignettes described a couple seeking sex therapy. For each pair of vignettes, therapists compared the two couples and then indicated the degree of dissimilarity between their treatment prognoses. The results of this study supported previous research in that client gender by itself was not a variable which influenced therapists' judgments. More importantly, the results indicated that male and female therapists, not only made different judgments concerning the clients' treatment prognosis, but these judgments were based on different gender-related cues. Male therapists focused on wife's desired frequency of sexual intercourse, husband's general marital satisfaction, and couple's overall marital satisfaction. Cues which female therapists utilized included husband's perception of who must change, amount of agreement between the couple concerning their sexual satisfaction, and couple's overall marital satisfaction, which was defined differently than male therapists' definition of overall marital satisfaction.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Educational psychology
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