THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG GUARDEDNESS.
OPENNESS, AND SELF - ESTEEM LN THE THERAPY
AND ACQUAEN'FAE‘ECE PROCESSES

Thesis for the Degree of M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE UNiV'ERSITY
HARVEY OAKLANDER
1969

 

JHESIS

 

 

ABSTRACT

THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG GUARDEDNESS,
OPENNESS, AND SELF-ESTEEM IN THE
IN THE THERAPY AND ACQUAINTANCE

PROCESSES

By

Harvey Oaklander

The purpose of this study was to see the relation-
ships among openness and guardedness about "self" and self-
esteem in the therapy and acquaintance processes. It was
decided to gather the data by coding the verbal behavior
from tapes of therapy sessions and of acquaintance sessions.
The coding system for openness and guardedness about self
was taken from the Ashby e£_al. study (1956) and for self—
esteem from Raimy's (19MB) study. The first and ninth
sessions were coded for both types of processes, coding
being divided into fifteen second intervals. Two raters
were trained according to the coding systems until they
achieved a .9“ Pearson product-moment correlation
reliability.

The therapy tapes used were from the Counseling
Center library at M.S.U. Eleven therapy clients were
chosen for the study. They were all college coeds who had
completed at least nine sessions with a male therapist. The
acquaintance tapes used were from a study by Conway (1968).

All the tapes consisted of conversations between male-

Harvey Oaklander

On the basis of previous studies and Lecky's
"theory of self—consistency" and Rogers' "self" theory,
the following hypotheses were postulated:

l. Openness and guardedness would be initially

higher in therapy than the acquaintance
process but would converge over time.

D.)

Openness and guardedness would be positively
correlated in therapy while no such relation—
ship should exist in the acquaintance process.

3. Self-esteem should increase over time in the

therapy process while no change should take
place in the acquaintance process.

A. There should be significantly more self

statements in the therapeutic process than
in the acquaintance process.

The results for hypothesis one confirmed that
initially there would be more openness and guardedness in
the therapy process and also showed a trend towards con—
vergence between the two groups although it was not sig-
nificant. The results for hypothesis two were somewhat
startling but seems to be in support of self—consistency
theory. Initially openness and guardedness are highly
correlated in therapy but by the ninth session are slightly
negatively correlated. A possible explanation for this
change may be that many of the clients have achieved self—
consistency and although they elicit openness statements,
they no longer feel threatened and become guarded. This
seems to be the case for the normative population as
represented by the acquaintance process where the correla-

tion stays at .0 across sessions, mainly because the

acquaintance members do not become guard-..

Harvey Oaklander

female dyads. The subjects in this study were also college
students at M.S.U. who met once a week for course credit and
also finished at least nine sessions. To further equate the
two groups, only the statements of the female member of the
acquaintance dyads were coded. A rating scale was devised
to meet Rogers' (195A) criteria of what was a self statement.
According to his criteria any statement which had an "I,”
"Me," ”we," or "us" was coded a self statement. Further pur-
suing his definition of a self statement, three valences
were placed on self statements: positive, negative, and
neutral. Two other dimensions were then added, qualified—
unqualified statements and self attitude—5elf—in—relation-
ship statements. All statements by the S were coded into

one of these twelve self categories or into a thirteenth
category, non—self statements.

The proportion of statements in a category to total
statements was used as the unit of measure. The three main
variables of the study consisted of different combinations
of the twelve self categories. Openness about self consisted
of the category ”unqualified negative self-in-relationship“
and also of the category "unqualified negative self-
attitudes.” Guardedness consisted of the categories, "quali—
fied negative self—in-relationship and self—attitudes.”
Self-esteem consisted of the proportion of "unqualified posi—
tive self-in—relationship and self-attitudes" to "qualified
and unqualified negative self—in-relationship and self-

attitudes“ plus "unqualified positive” self statements.

Harvey Oaklander

For hypothesis three a trend towards increase in
self-esteem was found for therapy clients, while no such
change occurred in the acquaintance process. The results
were somewhat confounded and it is believed the change
would have been much greater if outcome measures of
success in treatment were taken for the therapy clients.

The fourth hypothesis was confirmed. An additional
significant finding was that over time the proportion of
self statements significantly decreased in the acquaint-
ance process.

It was suggested for future research that outcome
measures on success in therapy should be taken to see
what changes in the self variables under study covary with
successful or unsuccessful treatment in therapy. It was
also suggested that a wider sample be drawn as the con—
clusions reached are limited to female college students
in a counseling center situation and may not apply to
other forms of therapy and other clients with other types
of problems. It was further suggested that instead of
choosing a certain number of sessions to be studied, that
acquaintance dyads be matched with therapy clients and
that the acquaintance dyads continue meeting as long as
the client continues therapy. Finally a good study for
future research would be to select from persons seeking
help in therapy, a sample; half of which would be randomly
assigned to the therapeutic process and the other half

to the acquaintance process.

THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG GUARDEDNESS,
OPENNESS, AND SELF-ESTEEM IN THE
THERAPY AND ACQUAINTANCE

PROCESSES

By

Harvey Oaklander

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Psychology

1969

DEDICATION

To Leah

whose love gave this whole

study meaning to me

11

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to thank Dr. Messé. He was of
immense help with the organization and style of this
study. In addition I especially appreciate his help
with my statistical design and his being able to under-
stand me when even I was not too sure what I meant.

I also would like to express my gratitude to Dr.
Grummon. He provided for me the opportunity to reflect
upon many c0gent ideas in regards to this study.

Finally I would like to thank Dr. Stollak, my
committee chairman. It is thanks to the atmosphere he
provided of non-directiveness that I felt free to pursue

any and all ideas.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DEDICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . 1

Overview . . . . . . . 1

Functions and Aspects of Self . . . . l

The Import of "Self" in Psychology . . . A

Methods of Studying "Self" . . . . . . 7

Introspection . . . . . . . . . 7

Q- -Technique . . . . . . . 7

Analysis of Verbal Behavior . . . 8

Goals of Present Study . . . . . . 9

Previous Findings . . . . . . 9

Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Reasons for Hypotheses . . . . . . 13

Importance of the Present Study . . . 17

II. METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

III. RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2‘

Mean Proportions . . . . . . . . 25

Analysis of Variances . . . . . . . 25

self-ESteem o o o o o o o o o o 25

Openness . . . . . . . . . . 29

Guardedness . . . . . . . . . 30

Summary of Results . . . . . . . 30

Hypothesis I . . . . . . . . . 3O

Hypothesis II . . . . . . . . . 30

iv

Chapter

Hypothesis III
Hypothesis IV

IV. DISCUSSION

Hypothesis
Hypothesis
Hypothesis
Hypothesis

Alternative Explanation

Psychological Analysis
External Validity
Concluding Remarks

V. SUMMARY .

BIBLIOGRAPHY . .

APPENDICES .

I .
II
III
IV

Page
31
31
33
33
33
37
A3
AA
149
50

5:;
58

Table

10.

ll.

12.

13.

1“.

LIST OF TABLES

Mean prOportions of the first and ninth sessions
for the therapy and acquaintance processes by
category . . . . . . . . . . .
Summary of analysis of variance for self-esteem
Summary of analysis of variance for openness .

Summary of analysis of variance for guardedness

Summary of analysis in simple effects for self-
esteem . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summary of analysis of simple effects for
"unqualified negative self—in-relationship"
statements . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summary of analysis of simple effects for
"unqualified positive self-attitude" statements

Summary of analysis of simple effects for "non-
self" statements . . . . . . . . .

Summary of analysis of variance for "unqualified
positive self-in-relationship" statements

Summary of analysis of variance for ”unqualified
neutral self-in-relationship" statements .

Summary of analysis of variance for "unqualified
negative self—in-relationship" statements . .

Summary of analysis of variance for "unqualified
positive self-in—relationship" statements . .

Summary of analysis of variance for "unqualified
negative self—attitude" statements. . . . .

Summary of analysis of variance for "qualified
negative self-in-relationship" statements.

vi

Page

26
62
62
63

65

65

66

68

69

69

7O

7O

Table Page

15. Summary of analysis of variance for "qualified
negative self-attitude" statements . . . . . 71

16. Summary of analysis of variance for "non-self"
statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

17. Openness-guardedness correlations for the first
and ninth sessions and across sessions in both
the therapy and acquaintance processes . . . . 73

18. Raw score proportions of the 13 compared variables

for the therapy group . . . . . . . . . 75
19. Raw score proportions of the 13 component

variables for the acquaintance group . . . . 76
20. Raw score proportions of main variables for the

therapy group . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

21. Raw score proportions of main variables for the
acquaintance group . . . . . . . . . . 78

vii

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix Page
A. Rating Scale . . . . . . . . . . 59
B. Analyses of Variances for Main Variables . 61
C. Analyses of Simple Effects . . . . . . 64

D. ANOVAS for Components of Experimental
Variables . . . . . . . . . . . 67

E. Correlations Between Openness and Guarded-
ness 0 O 0 O 0 O I 0 O O 0 O O 72

F. Raw Data: Proportion Scores for all
Categories and Variables for all SS . . . 7A

G. Coding System for the Three Main Experi—

mental Variables: Openness, Guardedness,
and Self-Esteem . . . . . . . . . 79

viii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Overview

 

The major purpose of this study is the investigation
of the relationships among openness and guardedness about
self especially with respect to expression of self—esteem

in the therapy and acquaintance processes.

Functions and Aspects of Self

 

The importance of the "self" concept in the litera-
ture is easily shown by the quantity of material written
about it, and by the avid interest of many theoreticians
with very diverse vieWpoints. To begin with there was
William James (1890) who developed the idea of self as a
concept because he felt there was an inner core within a
person that directs his behavior. He saw this self as
both a knower and a known. The self is both the subject
or the thing that experiences and also the object or the
thing experienced. He divided the self into the material,
social, spiritual, and the pure ego. The pure ego is the
thinker, the experiencer, that gives us a sense of
personal identity separate from everyone else. The
material self is our possessions and the social self how
others see us. The spiritual self is the inner core of

l

the self, man's inner or subjective being, his psychic
faculties, or dispositions.

Freud's ego is his equivalent for the concept of
self. He saw the ego as both a knower and known also.

To quote from The Egg and the Id (1960),

 

For the ego, perception plays the part which in
the id falls to instinct . . . The functional
importance of the ego is manifested in the fact
that normally control over the approaches to
motility devolves upon it (p. 7).

Later on in the same book Freud gives his conceptualiza-
tion of the ego as an object,

A person's own body and above all it's surface,
is a place from which both external and internal
perceptions may spring. It is seen like any
office, but to the touch it yields two kinds of
sensations, one which may be equivalent to an
internal perception. Psychophysiology has fully
discussed the manner in which a person's own body
attains its special position among other objects
in the workd of perception . . . The ego is

first and foremost a bodily ego (pp. 15—16).

Jung saw the self as the midpoint of personality, around
which all of the other systems are constellated. It
holds these systems together and provides the personality
with unity, equilibrium, and stability. Jung says of the
self,

This would be the point of a new equilibrium, a

new centering of the total personality, a

virtual centre which, on account of its focal

position between conscious and unconscious

ensures for the personality a new and more solid

foundation (Hall, Lindzey, 1957, p. 85).

Adler postulated a creative self.

This was the prime mover, the philosopher's
stone, the elixir of life, the first cause of
everything human for which Adler had been
searching. The unitary, consistent, creative
self is sovereign in the personality structure
(Hall, Lindzey, 1957, p. 12A).

Allport (1968) formulated his concept of self as
having eight functions which are the special aspects of
personality that have to do with warmth, with unity,
with a sense of personal importance. His first seven I:
functions he called the propriate functions and they ‘

consisted of (1) body awareness, (2) self—identity

(overtime), (3) Ego enhancement, (A) Ego-extension,

 

(5) Rational process, (6) self—image, (7) PrOpriate
striving, the known, and his eighth function was the
knower, that which perceives the other seven.

Rogers (1968) postulates a self-structure which is
an organized configuration of perceptions of the self
which are admissible to awareness. It is composed of
such elements as the perceptions of one's characteristics
and abilities, the percepts and concepts of the self in
relation to others and to the environment, the value
qualities which are perceived as having positive or
negative valence.

Gordon (1968) sees the

self as the subjective stream of consciousness
including perceiving, thinking, planning,
evaluation, choosing, and the resultant accruing
structure of self conceptions (p. 116).

The self is composed of both social identity and

personal attributes.

Finally, Secord and Backman in Social Psychology

 

(196A) define self as the attitudes one has towards him-
self. These attitudes can be split into three aspects,
the cognitive which is the content of self, the
affective which is how one feels towards himself, and

the behavioral or how one acts towards himself.

The Import of "Self" in Psychology

 

There has been great diversity and disagreement over
the concept of self in psychology but most theoreticians
see the self as either the subject who experiences or the
object experienced or both. There is also a common element
in all definitions of self, that is the character of self
as an organizer of some consistency of some order of
behavior. This brings up the inevitable question of why
study the self at all? For one thing if we know someone's
self we could then know why he acts in a certain way as a
person's behavior is consistent with his self. For
another thing as Seidenberg and Proshansky say in @3319

Studies in Social Psychology (1965)

 

Which needs are significant for the person and
how they are related to each other depend on how
the person conceives of himself as a social being.
The concept of "self" has assumed increasing
importance inthe theory and reserch of the social
psychologist. The person's early experiences with
others in a variety of group settings lead him to
conceive of himself in given ways, depending on
what is demanded of him and how others evaluate
his responses to these demands. In brief, the
person himself becomes the core of a cognitive
structure that defines and evaluates who he is,
and what he can do (p. 30).

Returning to James' Principles of Psychology (1890)

 

we get a similar idea to why the self should be studied,
especially the self of selves, James' spiritual self. He
says of this self that,

It presides over the perception of sensations,
and by giving or withholding its assent it
influences the movements they tend to arouse.

It is the home of interest,-—not the pleasant or
painful, not even pleasure or pain, as such, but
that within us to which pleasure and pain, the
pleasant and the painful, speak. It is the
source of effort and attention, and the place
from which appear to emanate the fiats of the
will (p. 297-298).

Certainly for James studying this construct self would
help the psychologist greatly in explaining and predicting
behavior.

Freud (The Ego and the Id, 1960) saw the ego as the

 

controller of our actions, our emotions, and our per-
ception of things as well as the seat of reason. It
was continually directing behavior through compromises
with the id, the superego, and the external reality.
As Freud metaphorically put the ego's relation to the
id, "It is like a man on horseback" (p. 15). He
carried the analogy further and said,

Often a rider, if he is not to be parted from

his horse, is obliged to guide it where it wants

to go; so in the same way the ego is in the habit

of transforming the id's will into action as if

it were its own (p. 15).

Catell says the most important source of unity

in the individual is

the ability to contemplate the physical and

social self whereby the satisfaction of any desire
becomes subsidiated in part to a sentiment for the
welfare of the whole self. This sentiment becomes
by such contributions the most powerful sentiment
in the lattice, controlling all others in some
degree (1950, p. 65“).

Rogers (195“) bases his whole method of psychotherapy
on the concept of self. He sees the client who enters
therapy as having a negative correlation between his
perception of his self and his self—ideal, the person
he would like to be. This seems to cause a considerable
amount of inner distress or tension. During the process
of therapy there becomes a greater congruence between
self and ideal self. This change towards congruence is
mainly seen as a change in self-perceptions which is
supported by a study by E. Rudikoff (195“) in which
changes in the self concept were shown to take place much
more than the concept of the ideal self. There is some
evidence that during therapy one‘s concept of self changes
in the direction of greater self-understanding, increased
inner comfort, greater confidence, and Optimism, increased
self-direction and self responsibility, more comfortable
relationships with others, and less need for self—
concealment (Rogers, 19A2; Rudikoff, 19A2). Correlated
with these changes in self are changes in self-
descriptions indicative of better adjustment (Dymond,

19A2). This clearly shows the importance of our under-

standing the self concept because the way we perceive

ourselves has an important relationship to our own feeling
of inner comfort and in addition influences our relation—
ship with others and our overall adjustment. For Rogers
the self regulates behavior, for behavior that is not
consistent with the self—picture either does not occur

or is not fitted into the picture. It is only when a
person can symbolize all his experiences or be able to

match his perceived world with the objective world that

.m' ' an:
.'
_-._i_}i_'

he can adjust to the real world.

 

l-I-_-HJ Si"

Methods of Studying "Self"

 

k...” .

Introspection

 

James (1890) thought that the inner self or what
passes for the entire feeling of spiritual activity is
really a feeling of bodily activities whose exact nature
is by most men overlooked. James went about studying
the self by introspection. Unfortunately, this method
is not the most creditable for scientific study because
it fails to meet the standards of inter-observer

reliability so some other methods had to be found.

Q-Technique

 

Stephenson (1953) has developed a useful instrument
which was used by Rogers and his associates in studying
the self; the Q-technique. This technique consists of
the S dividing self-descriptions into different piles

from those most descriptive of himself to those

least descriptive of his self. Q-sorts are also used to
get a measure of the ideal self. There are however,
problems of validity for this method. Does the person
really sort the cards according to his self concept?

What may very well be occurring is that people may be
presenting a socially desirable picture of themselves.
Kenny (1956) and Edwards (1957) found high correlations
between placement of items on Q-sorts and social
desirability. Chodorkoff (195“) also found defensiveness
to be an important variable in the self—adjustments of
people, and that self-reports cannot be relied upon to
give the same picture of personality as are obtained from
outside judges. He found that in some individuals there
was a great deal of perceptual defense. This variable
perceptual defense correlated with lack of agreement
between self-reports and judges reports and also cor—

related inversely with adjustment.

Analysis of Verbal Behavior

 

Raimy (1948) used verbal behavior for developing a
method of determining the self concept of a person. He
decided to classify all statements into those that were
self—references and those that were external references.
The categories he used were positive, negative, and,
ambivalent attitudes toward self, ambiguous self
references, external references, and statements of

information. The procedure was found to have an

inter-rater reliability of .81. Raimy also tested its
validity by comparing the self concepts of the clients
from this data analysis with two other forms of analyz-
ing the client's self concept and correlations were
found in the .80's. The first method was to compare a
list composed by Rogers (19A2) of the outstanding
attitudes which have been spontaneously expressed by the
clients. His list of attitudes was classified according
to the present method and the results compared favorably
with Raimy's method. Also the method was compared with
the analysis of recorded interviews by Curran (1945).
This method compared favorably also. Raimy admits that
such factors as defensiveness would result in distortion
~of the true attitudes, particularly during the early
stages of contact, but as the counselor aims at free
expression by the client there is reason to suspect that
the resulting responses will bear a resemblance to the
picture which the client perceives of himself. It is just

on this principle that the present study is predicated.

Goals of Present Study

 

Previous Findings

 

The present study is designed to study the defensive
behavior of the individual in the initial contact and
changes in such behavior over time and changes in the

relationship of defensive behavior and self-esteem over

10

time. Raimy's (1948) results showed the importance of
the self-concept to adjustment. In successfully treated
cases in therapy, positive self—reference statements
increased while negative self—reference statements
decreased. In the unsuccessful cases no such trend was
found. Raimy utilized the concept of self—esteem in
this study defining it by a ratio score, the number of

positive self-referents over the number of negative self—

. .P-" "flu-2.7? 3.1-?
‘.

referents. His results could then be rephrased in terms

of self—esteem. Self—esteem increasing for the successful

 

cases while no such trend was found for unsuccessful

‘3'

cases.

Sheerer (19A9) found that there is a marked and
fairly regular increase in the measured acceptance of a
respect for self from the beginning to the end of the
cases. She defined self—acceptance as

1. A person perceives himself as a person of
worth.
2. He perceives his standards as being based
on his own experience.
3. He perceives his own feelings, motives, social
and personal experiences without distortion
of the basic sensory data (pp. 169—175).
According to Sheerer's definition of self—acceptance,
it seems that self—esteem is subsumed under the first
part of the self-acceptance definition, that is a state-
ment is self-accepting if a person perceives himself
as a person of worth.

Haigh (19A9) studied defensive behavior in client—

centered interviews by verbal analysis of the data.

ll

Haigh based his hypothesis that defensive behavior would
decrease over the course of therapy upon Hogan's (19A8)
theory of defense behavior. Hogan says defensiveness is
seen as one form of behavior which may follow upon the
perception of threat. The individual is threatened when
he perceives an experience to be inconsistent with a
value or concept which he holds as part of his concept of
self. By acting defensively the individual distorts his
perceptions so as to reduce awareness of the perceived
incongruity. Haigh postulated that defensive behavior
would decrease because of the acceptant manner of the
therapist which would decrease the client's anxiety over
being morally evaluated. The client also is allowed to
be autonomous. He, himself, is responsible for any
decisions made and therefore this reduces any threat to
the client's sense of worth. Also, during therapy a
client becomes aware of deep inner inconsistencies. As
therapy is the working through of such inconsistencies,
defensive behavior due to these inconsistencies should
reduce over time. Haigh's hypothesis was confirmed. It
was also found that more positive self-regard and self-
attitudes correlated with a decrease in defensiveness.
In a study by Ashby, Ford, Guerney, and Guerney
(1956) verbal behavior was also coded into many cate-
gories including guardedness and Openness about self.

The reliability for such scales for all four raters on

12

experimental responses was .81. It was also found that
there was a direct relationship between guardedness about
self and Openness about self. The more one admitted his
faults, the more guarded he was furing an interview.
They defined Openness of self as
the extent to which the client freely discusses
his problems, deviations from the normal, his
culturally frowned upon traits, behavior, and
motivations, and in general his willingness to
discuss thoroughly those areas which seem most

threatening (p. 576).

Guardedness was defined as

 

the extent to which the client exhibits wariness

or hedging in regard to presenting and working on

his problems, admitting faults, and exposing

himself to potential criticism, and change (p. 577).
This includes self-stimulated denial or minimization of
his problems or his deviations from the "normal"-—
denial of culturally undesirable feelings, traits, and
motivations. It also includes the needs to justify
himself or his actions to the therapist and expectations
of criticism from the therapist. Ashby, e£_§S, found
that while clients of the "warm dynamic” therapists were
quite guarded, they were also quite open. The confession
of an inadequacy or a socially unacceptable feeling was
usually preceded or followed by guarded statements. It
seemed that clients regularly experienced some anxiety
in relation to Openness about themselves and needed to

cling to some defense in order to allay their anxiety.

This is in support of the theory of self—consistency and

13

especially of Hogan's (19A8) theory of defensive behavior.
Guardedness is a defensive behavior which comes about

when an apparent inconsistency of self is openly admitted
to awareness. This is perceived as a threat and is then

guarded against.

Hypotheses

 

On the basis of the studies previously cited the
hypotheses formulated in the present study were:

1. Therapy clients will be initially more Open
and more guarded than acquaintance dyads
and they will converge over time.

2. Guardedness and Openness about self are
positively correlated in the therapy group.

3. Self-esteem will increase over the nine
sessions for the clients in therapy while no
such change will occur for the acquaintance
dyads.

A. Therapy clients will make proportionately
more self statements than acquaintance dyads.

Reasons for Hypotheses

 

According to self-consistency theory as started by
Lecky (19A5) resistance is caused by a person's refusal
to admit to awareness a part of his phenomenal field that
is inconsistent with his view of his self. Hogan (19A8)
sees a person's experience as being inconsistent with his
self concept as being perceived as threat and thus

resulting in defensive behavior. Rogers says that

1A

a positive emotional attitude toward the self
seems to exist when the self structure is firmly
organized and a negative feeling about the self
exists when the organization of self is
threatened by experiences which are vaguely or
clearly seen as inconsistent with that structure.
Thus both the integrated person and the person
who is well organized on what might be termed a
defensive basis who shuts out experiences of
awareness, will tend to have positive self-
regarding attitudes. When the self is experienced
as threatened or lacking in structural firmness,

 

It; ‘7‘.-

negative self attitudes exist (Gordon and Gergen, f1
1968, p. u39). :1
We thus derive from the theory of self—consistency that E
it is those people who perceive themselves as having i
inconsistent, disorganized self—concepts who are unhappy %
p

with themselves. Evidence has been found in such studies
by Bulter and Haigh (195A) and Rudikoff (195A) that people
who come to therapy are dissatisfied with themselves
and that over the course of therapy their self—concept
becomes more congruent with their self~idea1 and they
become more satisfied with themselves. 0n the basis of
these studies and Rogers' idea that it is those people
who have inconsistent self-concepts who are dissatisfied
with themselves, people who seek therapy are dissatisfied
with themselves because of their selfminconsistencies
and they seek therapy for this reason. This is obvious.
The first hypothesis is based on the theory that
people who seek therapy feel greater self—inconsistency
than controls and thus will initially be more Open and
more guarded about themselves because they perceive their

inconsistencies more than a control group and are thus

15

more highly motivated to reveal their negative self
aspects because they want to change and at the same
time will be more guarded because admitting self-
inconsistencies is perceived as a threat to the person
and arouses anxiety and must be defended against.
According to Rogers' theory, Openness and guardedness
should decrease over time because therapy brings about
the reorganization of the self where previously incon—
sistent or negative aspects of the self become acceptable
to the person. A decrease in defensive behavior over
time is found in the Haigh study.

The second hypothesis is based on the Ashby §£_§S,
study and is that there should be a direct positive cor-
relation between the amount of guardedness and the amount
of Openness in the therapeutic group.

The third hypothesis is that there should be an
increase in self-esteem over time in the process of
therapy while no change should occur in the acquaintance
dyads. Support for this comes from Rogers' (1965) theory
of the process of therapy. He believes that a person's
sense of worth will be enhanced over time during therapy
as he learns that his behaviors, no matter how unacceptable
they were to himself, are accepted by the therapist. As
the client finds that a significant person in his environ—
ment accepts him and his attributes, he is more able to

admit previously unacceptable experiences to awareness.

16

Because these experiences are accepted by the therapist
they are no longer perceived as a threat to the "self"
and the person is able to expand and reorganize his

self as he admits more of his experience to awareness.

As a person's self-concept expands his feeling of worthi—
ness will increase as he absorbs into his self—structure
parts of his self that he previously found unacceptable $1
and made him feel worthless because they were incon—
sistent with his "concept of self.” Also the client will

feel more competent, significant, and worthy as his

 

newly reorganized self allows him to experience sensory J
data undistorted and allows him to be the sole judge of
his beliefs and standards. He will thus feel more
worthy because he now controls his experience instead
of being helplessly controlled or confused by forces he
didn't understand. Evidence for the third hypothesis
is based on Rogers' explanations of the on—going thera-
peutic process and that as a client reorganizes his
"self—concept" during therapy, he accepts experiences
previously inconsistent with his self—concept. As
these self-inconsistencies decrease, a greater feeling
Of self-worth or self-esteem should occur as the person
no longer views aspects of his self negatively. At the
beginning Of therapy one's self-regarding attitudes are
more negative as he is unaccepting of many aspects of
his self. Studies that have found such results include

ones already cited; Raimy (19A8) and Seeman (19A9).

17

This also has some basis for support from the Ashby g:_al.
study previously cited in which it was found that from
the client's point of view the defensive aspects of the
relationship appear to develop earlier than the positive
aspects.

The fourth hypothesis is based on self—consistency
theory in that peOple who have self—inconsistencies will
be more highly motivated to talk about their "selves" to
gain consistency or as Rogers' would explain, within the
individual there is a self—actualizing drive that main-
tains and enhances the organism and acts to reorganize
the self by admitting into awareness and accepting pre—
viously denied experience and therefore the need to talk

about oneself to become consistent.

Importance of the Present Study

 

The findings of this study are a measure of what
happens to a person's self—concept over the course of
at least the first nine sessions. A later study could
investigate what variables within the therapeutic
relationship caused such changes in the verbal behavior
of the §L§' A further study to consider would be to
see if the changes that take place over therapy are
related to events outside of therapy for the clients.
Does high self-esteem in therapy mean that outside of
therapy the person is more satisfied with his self?

What is more this study has important implications for

18

the theory of self—consistency. If hypothesis three is
confirmed, it will give support to one of the postulates
of the theory that people who have an inconsistent self-
picture are dissatisfied with themselves and as they
become more self-consistent or more accepting Of their
selves, they will become less dissatisfied with their
selves and thus there should be less negative statements
about themselves, which is shown by openness about self,
and also less reason to be guarded about self. Of course
the results, if confirmed, will also show that there are
certain factors working in therapy that makes a person
more accepting of his self and less defensive about his
behavior than exists in non-therapeutic interview

sessions among peers.

CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY

Procedure

 

The first step was to obtain representative
groups. It was decided to use the coding of verbal
behavior for measuring self variables as this method
has high reliability as shown in studies previously
cited and also for our purposes of studying the process
of what happens during therapy has had high internal
validity. Also, with verbal behavior there is less
chance for confounding variables such as social desir-I
ability, which would be much more prevalent in Q-sorts
or questionnaires, to mediate the BIB responses. For the
therapy group we used tapes of eleven female college
students at M.S.U. who sought therapy and completed at
least nine interviews with male therapists. To obtain
a control pOpulation that would match the §L§ in the
experimental group except for the independent variable
of desire to seek help, we selected tapes from the
research of Conway (1968) of eleven different acquaintance
process interviews between male and female BIB who also
completed nine sessions, where the §L§ were volunteer V

M.S.U. students. Our unit of study is the verbal data

19

2O

elicited in each interview and the interviews were all
fifty minutes long. For practical reasons only the

1st and 9th sessions were analyzed and compared to find
differences over time and also between groups. To
further equate the two groups, as we are only interested
in the verbal behavior of one member of the therapy dyad,
the client, in coding the tapes in the eleven acquaintance
process dyads chosen at random only the female subjects
responses were analyzed according to the coding system
(Appendix G). The acquaintance process is an adequate
control as it represents normal conversation and what

we are hypothesizing is that under special conditions

Of therapy, the verbal behavior elicited for guardedness
and Openness about self and self—esteem will differ from

normal social intercourse.

Design

Two coders were trained to rate the tapes according
to the scoring system devised. The scoring system was
chosen on the basis of Carl Rogers' definition of the
self-structure which is,

the self-concept is an organized, fluid but con-
sistent conceptual pattern of the characteristics
of the "I" or "me" which are admissable into
awareness together with the values attached to
those concepts (195A, p. 55).

Most of the scoring system was taken from the Ashby

et a1. study. On the basis of Rogers' definition only

N

"I" "me", "us" or we" statements were considered

21

self-descriptive statements. This fulfills the next part
of the definition that only those characteristics
admitted to awareness were to be considered or in this
case the self—descriptive statements. To fulfill the
last part of the definition which states "the values
attached to those concepts" the self was divided into
three aspects, to represent the three possible valences F1
that could be attached to characteristics of the self,

the positive aspects, the neutral aspects, and the

J. E!

negative aspects.

 

wd‘
“£35114

Taking the Ashby e£_§l, definition Of openness
about self, positive aspects of the self are those the
person finds desirable or meet the cultural norm,
neutral aspects are those that are just part of one-
self but don't elicit any feeling, and negative aspects
are those traits or characteristics the person finds
undesirable or deviate from the cultural norm. The
definition of openness about self can then be derived
in the scoring system as an unqualified admission of a
fault which is an admittance of a negative aspect of the
self.

Guardedness about self is then defined as any
qualified statement tending to minimize or deny one's
problems or one's negative self.

Finally, self-esteem from Coopersmith's (1967)

definition is a personal judgement of worthiness that is

 

22

expressed in the attitudes the individual holds toward
himself. It is the evaluation which the individual makes
and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it
expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and
indicates the extent to which the individual perceives
himself to be capable, significant, successful and worthy.
In this case self-esteem is defined using Raimy's ratio
put into proportion form, the proportion being positive
self-referents over positive plus negative self-referents.
Positive self-referents being only unqualified positive
statements about self while negative self-referents are
all negative statements qualified and unqualified. The
justification for including qualified negative state-
ments is that although they may appear to be ambivalent,
according to Hogan's theory these qualified negative
statements are truly negative attitudes a person has
towards himself which then have to be covered up but

still exist quite prevalently.

The coding system will be divided into positive,
neutral, and negative aspects and all these aspects will
be subsumed under the categories of being either
qualified or unqualified statements.

Furthermore, it was decided to add another dimen-
sion, self-in-relationship vs. self-attitude statements.
Therefore the three aspects of self, positive, neutral,

and negative could now be either qualified or unqualified

23

and a self-in—relationship or self—attitude statements.
Self-in-relationship statements were discriminated from
self-attitude statements by scoring a self-in-relationship
statement as one in which a person describes his relation-
ship to his environment (what he does), while a statement
was scored a self-attitude statement when a person
describes how he feels or regards himself (what I am).
This variable was added as a measure of the depth of

self statements. The self-attitude statements being a
more intense examination of one's self. This made

twelve possible self categories.

A thirteenth category was added, non-self state—
ments, to find out what prOportion of a person's state-
ments were self statements. According to this categori—
zation scheme Openness is any unqualified statement
about a negative aspect of self. Guardedness is a
qualified statement about a negative aspect of self and
self-esteem is the proportion of unqualified positive
statements to all negative plus unqualified positive
statements. More complete explication of the categories
and a COpy of the rating scale can be found in Appendix
A. In summary, the thirteen categories are:

l. Unqualified positive self-in-relationship.

2. Unqualified neutral self-in-relationship.

3. Unqualified negative self-in-relationship.

A. Unqualified positive self-attitude.

10.
ll.
l2.

l3.

\OCDNJChU'l

2A

Unqualified neutral self-attitude.

Unqualified negative self-attitude.

Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified

Non—self.

positive self-in-relationship.
neutral self-in-relationship.
negative self-in—relationship.
positive self-attitude.
neutral self—attitude.

negative self—attitude.

Coding was divided into fifteen second intervals

and the proportion of total statements was the unit of

scoring for the different variables. The raters were

first trained on a number of tapes until they achieved

a Perason Product-moment correlation reliability of .9A

on the coding of a tape and then they proceded to code

the experiment tapes.

CHAPTER III

RESULTS

Mean Proportions

 

Below is Table l and it shows the mean proportion
of statements for all thirteen categories in the scoring
system for both the first and ninth sessions. In addi—
tion this table has the mean prOportion of statements
to total statements for the three main variables in the
study, self-esteem, Openness, and guardedness for both
the first and ninth sessions. Categories 5, 7, 8, 10
and 11 were eliminated from further consideration as
either no statements occurred in them at all or less

than one per cent of the total proportion of statements.

Analysis of Variances

 

Analysis of variances were performed on these
variables and their components whose frequency of occur-

rence were greater than one per cent of the total.

Self—Esteem

 

For the variable Self-Esteem (Appendix B, Table 2)
there was a significant difference between groups at the
.025 level of significance, the therapy group being
significantly lower in self-esteem. There was also an

25

 

26

TABLE 1.--Mean Proportions of the First and Ninth Sessions
for the Therapy and Acquaintance Processes by Category.

 

 

 

 

Therapy Acquaintance
Category Sessions Sessions
1 9 l 9
l. Unqualified positive
self—in—relationship .095 .102 .103 .099 E}
2. Unqualified neutral ’ :
self-in—relationship .205 .202 .172 .157
3. Unqualified negative
self-in-relationship .222 .203 .119 .083 r
A. Unqualified positive EH
self-attitude .008 .023 .005 .002
5. Unqualified neutral
self—attitude .0 .0 .0 .0
6. Unqualified negative
self—attitude .07“ .005 004 .016
7. Qualified positive
self—in-relationship .001 .001 .0 .001
8. Qualified neutral
self-in—relationship .001 .006 .0 .0
9. Qualified negative
self-in-relationship .038 .03” .0 .001
10. Qualified positive
self-attitude .001 .0 .0 .0
11. Qualified neutral
self-attitude .0 .0 .0 .0
l2. Qualified negative
self-attitude .015 .015 .0 .0
l3. Non-self .357 .371 .595 .6A0
Openness .287 .267 .123 .009 .
Guardedness .053 .0“9 .0 .001

 

 

27

interaction effect approaching significance at the .10
level. A test of simple effects (Appendix C, Table 5)
was done which indicated that female SS in the
acquaintance dyad emitted significantly more statements
in session 1 than did the female clients in the therapy
dyads at the .01 level. There was also a significant

difference in the same direction at the .05 level for

3’

these groups for the ninth session.

”7 {EJLT'AY- it'd—V. t.

Analysis of variances were also performed on the

components of self-esteem. These include the positive

WI". 3‘ All
'i.

self-referent categories 1 and A and the negative self-
referent categories 3, 6, 9 and 12.

For the positive self-referent category "unqualified
positive self-in-relationship statements"the data shown
in Appendix D, Table 9 indicated no significant dif-
ferences. Category A, "unqualified positive self—
attitude statements," shown in Appendix D, Table 12,
indicated a difference between groups approaching sig-
nificance at the .10 level and a significant difference
for sessions at the .05 level of significance and for the
groups X sessions interaction, there was a significant
difference at the .001 level. An analysis of simple
effects was done on category four (Appendix C, Table 7)
and the results for the therapy dyads indicated a
significant increase between sessions at the .001 level

Of significance. There was also a significant difference

28

between groups at the .005 level for session 9, SS in

the therapy dyads emitting significantly more unqualified
positive self—in—relationship statements than S: in the
acquaintance dyads.

For the negative component statements of self-
esteem, for category three, "unqualified negative self—
in-relationship statements," the ANOVA presented in ’1
Appendix D, Table 11 showed a difference between groups
at the.001 level of significance while for sessions the

difference was significant at the .001 level and for

 

the group X session interaction there was a difference

1"

significant at the .025 level. Again an analysis of
simple effects, Appendix C, Table 6, was done which
revealed that in session one the therapy group emitted
"unqualified negative self-in-relationship" statements
than in session nine at the .005 level Of probability
and for the acquaintance group the difference between
sessions was in the same direction at the .001 level.
For session one the therapy group emitted more category
three statements than the acquaintance group at the
.001 level and for session 9 there was also a dif-
ference between groups in the same direction at the
.001 level of probability. For category six, "unquali-
fied negative self—attitude statements" the ANOVA

found in Appendix D, Table 13, indicated that the

therapy group emitted significantly more such statements

29

than the acquaintance group at the .001 level of sig-
nificance.

The ANOVA for category 9, "qualified negative
self—in-relationship statements" presented in Appendix D,
Table 1A indicated that the therapy group made signifi-
cantly more such statements than the acquaintance group
at the .001 level of significance. The ANOVA for category
12, "qualified negative self-attitude statements,"
presented in Appendix D, Table 15, showed a similar dif-
ference between groups as in category 9 at the .025 level

of probability.

Openness

For the variable Openness the ANOVA presented in
Appendix B, Table 3 showed that the therapy group
emitted significantly more openness statements than the
acquaintance group at the .001 level Of significance.
The results for the ANOVAS for the components of open-
ness, categories 3 and 6, ”unqualified negative self-
in—relationship and self—attitudes," can be found
described earlier in the Results section under the Self—
Esteem variable. Both categories showed differences
significant at the .001 level Of significance between
groups, the clients in the therapy dyads emitting more

such statements than the §§ in the acquaintance dyads.

 

3O

Guardedness

 

For the variable guardedness, an ANOVA was done
which is presented in Appendix B, Table A and a difference
was revealed which showed that the therapy group was
significantly more guarded than the acquaintance group
at the .001 level Of probability. The components of
guardedness, categories 9 and 12, "qualified negative
self-in—relationship and self-attitudes," can also be
found earlier in this section under the self-esteem
variable. These components both indicated differences
between groups significant at the .001 level. For both
components, the clients in therapy emitted more such

statements than the EB in the acquaintance dyads.

Summary of Results

 

Hypothesis I

 

Initially therapy clients are more Open and more
guarded than acquaintance dyad members but no convergence

was found over time.

Hypothesis II

 

Product moment correlations were done between
openness and guardedness. A table of the results are
presented in Appendix E, Table 17. The results indicated
that for total statements made across sessions one and
nine the correlation was .006, but the correlation for

session one was .62 which is significant at the .05

 

31

level. For the ninth session though the correlation

between Openness is —.26.

Hypothesis III

 

Results reveal a convergence in Self—Esteem between
the groups by the ninth session. Originally the difference

between groups in the first session is significant at the

 

.01 level but by the ninth session this difference is only r!
significant at the .05 level. A look at the table Of

means, Table 1, also shows that the mean for self—esteem

has increased in therapy while very little difference

was present for the acquaintance dyads. The mean dif— 12¢

ference for the therapy dyads was +.0A while the

acquaintance dyads decreased very slightly by -.013.

Hypothesis IV

 

An ANOVA was done for category thirteen (Appendix
D, Table 16) non-self statements, and a difference
between groups was found at the .001 level of signifi-
cance. There was also a group X session interaction at
the .001 level. An analysis Of simple effects was done
(Appendix D, Table 8) and a significant increase from
session 1 to 9 was found for the acquaintance dyads at
the .001 level. In addition for both the first and
ninth sessions it was found that the §§ in the acquaint—
ance dyads emitted significantly more non-self and thus
significantly less self statements than clients in

therapy at the .001 level.

32

An ANOVA conducted on category 2, "neutral self-
in-relationship statements," yielded no significant

differences.

CHAPTER IV

DISCUSSION

Hypothesis I

 

The results of this study lend support to the
theory of self—consistency. The first hypothesis,
which states that Openness and guardedness would
initially be significantly greater in the therapy
clients than in the acquaintance dyads, was supported.
These results showed that the therapy clients perceive
more self-inconsistencies and that admittance Of these
inconsistencies into awareness arouses anxiety in the

therapy clients which is defended against by guardedness.

Hypothesis II

 

A possible reason for the lack Of significant
decreases in openness and guardedness statements can be
deduced from the results for hypothesis 2. Summing
across sessions the correlation for therapy clients
between Openness and guardedness was .0. For the first
session, though, a significantly high correlation of
.62 was found while by the ninth session the correlation
was -.26. What seems to be possibly happening,
according to Rogers' self theory, is that at the begin—

ning of therapy the clients seek help because they
33

3A

perceive inconsistencies in their self concept. These
inconsistencies are admitted at the beginning of

therapy in a working through manner to self-actualize or
make the individual's self consistent. By the ninth
session for this group of clients what seems to happen
is that the originally homogeneous population of clients
with self-inconsistencies has changed to a dichotomous
pOpulation of those clients who have reorganized their
self-concept so as to be able to accept formally incon-
sistent parts of their selves and are able to freely
admit these negative aspects of their selves without it
arousing any anxiety, and those clients who haven't
achieved such reorganization.

Support for this explanation is found in the study
by Sheerer (19A9) where self-acceptance increased from
the beginning to the end Of therapy. Part of her defi-
nition of self—acceptance is especially appropriate in
supporting the idea that clients by the end of therapy
no longer become anxious about negative aspects of their
selves. To quote part Of her definition of self-acceptance
"a person perceives his own feelings, motives, social,
and personal experiences without distortion of the
sensory data" (pp. 169—175). Apparently this is only
true for successful cases.

To further understand why the correlation by the
ninth session changes from .62 to -.26 it must also be

postulated that some clients actually become more

35

guarded during the process of therapy. Postulating that
there are both clients who are self-accepting and are
therefore freely open and clients who become more
guarded explains why there is no significant changes in
Openness and Of guardedness from the first to the ninth
sessions in therapy although a decrease was hypothesized.
It also explains why the originally high correlation r;
changes to an insignificant one as although while both A
self-accepting and non-self—accepting clients may be

eliciting the same amount Of openness statements, the

 

self—accepting clients are making less guarded statements L?
by the ninth session than they were in the first session
while the non-self accepting clients actually become more
guarded from the first to the ninth session.

The data further suggests an interesting phenomenon
in that as the correlation is —.26, it would seem that
self-accepting therapy clients are actually able to admit
more openness statements about themselves by the ninth
session than in the first session while becoming less
guarded, while the non-seIf—accepting client would seem
to decrease in the amount of openness statements from
the first to the ninth sessions while becoming more
guarded. What would be needed for future research is
an outcome measure on whether therapy was successful or
not, up to that point in therapy. It would then be

predicted that for the successful cases, the clients .

 

36

would retain the same or increase the amount of

Openness statements they elicit while their guardedness
statements would decrease in proportion. For unsuccess-
ful cases it would be predicted that they would become
less Open and more guarded from the first to the ninth
session of therapy.

The explanation for this behavior in the unsuccess-
ful cases can be also explained by exchange theory as
postulated by Thiabaut and Kelly (1959). The unsuccessful
cases are not deriving any benefits from their disclosures
of negative aspects of their selves. Originally they
elicited negative self-statements (costs) in the hOpe of
gaining self-consistency, peace of mind,some panacea for
all their problems (reward) but for these unfortunates
no reward is forthcoming and soon the mounting costs,
negative self—disclosures, which are very much costs for
all the anxiety they produce, overbalance the expected'
rewards and the person become less Open and actually
rnore guarded as a way of reducing the costs, anxiety.
The acquaintance dyads which were used to represent the
normal population by being randomly chosen showed .0
correlations between openness and guardedness for the
fiznst and ninth sessions and summing across for the
txrtal sessions. This is consistent with the second
hllpothesis since the acquaintance dyads were considered
to be representative Of the normal pOpulation and there-

fbxre representative of persons who mainly do not have

37

the desire to seek help. In other words they may not
perceive or might minimize inconsistencies within them-
selves and are for the most part, able to accept their
negative self-aspects as part of their self-concept.
Therefore they are minimally guarded, as admitting these
negative self aspects do not represent a threat to an
unstable self—concept and thus do not produce anxiety
which has to be guarded against. What is seen by this
is that what was previously predicted about successfully
treated clients is that they should approach the normal
population in the relationship between openness and
guardedness. Ideally therapy clients should become able

to produce Openness statements without becoming guarded.

Hypothesis III

 

The third hypothesis is not confirmed by the data.
The acquaintance dyads have significantly higher self—
esteem scores across both sessions and there is no sig-
nificant groups X session interaction which was predicted
by hypothesis three which stated that therapy clients
would increase in their self—esteem while no such change
should take place for acquaintance dyads. Self—
consistency theory predicts that clients initially
seeking therapy will feel greater inconsistencies and
will therefore have low self-esteem. This was reported
by Raimy (19A8) and Seeman (19A9) who found at the

beginning of therapy there was a preponderance of

38

negative to positive self-referents. That a significant
increase did not occur in therapy, although there was a
mean difference from the first to the ninth sessions of
+.0A, can again be explained by the fact that no outcome
measures were taken of whether the clients improved or
got worse. In the Raimy and Seeman studies increases in
self-esteem were found for clients who their therapists
considered successfully treated. Therefore the results
in the ninth session for self-esteem are confounded in
that there are possibly both successful and unsuccessful
cases. A further study should collect success measures
for the clients to see whether Raimy's and Seeman's
results are confirmed. If successful clients do have
higher self-esteem, this would be affirmation of self-
consistency theory in that through the reorganization
and reintegration of inconsistent aspects of the self
into the self-concept, the person should deem himself a
more worthy individual. If unsuccessful, this means

the person has failed to reorganize his self-concept and
should still have low self-esteem.

From previous postulations though it is dubious
whether this will happen. Clients who become self-
accepting actually admit more Openness statements but
without the need to feel guarded. They become consistent,
well-organized individuals who are able to admit their

faults and still perceive themselves as persons of worth.

39

Contrasting this, it has been suggested that non-self-
accepting clients become less open and more guarded.
Concommitantly, their feelings Of worth remains low.
Doubt is therefore cast on the usefulness of Raimy's
self-esteem ratio Of positive over negative self-
referents. Using this ratio it could then be concluded
that some of the most unsuccessful cases in therapy, a“
where the person becomes guarded and makes very few I
Openness statements but many more positive self—statements
would have high self—esteem while they would in reality
deem themselves very unworthy individuals. A more sub-
stantial index of self-esteem would be one in which the
quality of the positive or negative self—referent was
judged along a dimension. Such a scale was used in the
Sheerer study.

Disregarding the question of the validity of
Raimy's self—esteem ratio, although there was not a
significant increase in self—esteem for the therapy
group, the ANOVA for self-esteem did show a groups X
session interaction approaching significance (p < .10).
To further study the phenomenon of whether self-esteem
increases during therapy, it is advisable that the first
and terminating interviews be used to compare the amount
Of self-esteem. The first and ninth sessions were just
used for practical reasons in this study and may have

produced a confounding, as many of the clients at the

A0

ninth session may have been in the middle of the thera-
peutic process for them and might have been at the point
where they were intensely working through their self-
inconsistencies and had not yet achieved a stable
reorganization of their self-concept. It is suggested
therefore that further research in this area utilize the
first and near terminating interviews and that acquaint—
ance dyads are simultaneously randomly matched to therapy
dyads and continue meeting for the same number of sessions
as the therapy dyad they are matched with.

A look at the positive components of self-esteem
show no significant difference between groups for category
one, "unqualified positive self-in-relationship," but
there was a significant increase in unqualified positive
self-attitude statements for therapy clients while no such
change occurred for the acquaintance process. The change
was so great that by the ninth session therapy clients
were making significantly more unqualified positive self-
attitude statements than the Sp in the acquanitance
dyads, significant at the .005 level. This data again
suggests the importance of including the quality of self-
referents into any self-esteem measure. It is indicated
here that the more personal self-statements, those which
express one's attitude towards oneself, are a better
measure Of one's feelings Of self—worth. These findings

are consistent with self-consistency theory because during

Al

the process Of therapy one accepts previously unacceptable
experience and by thus being able to admit this previously
inconsistent and denied experience into awareness, the
person feels more competent and worthy as he is now the
sole arbiter of his experience instead of being controlled
by forces he doesn't understand. The possible explanation
for therapy clients having significantly higher prOpor—
tions of positive self—attitude statements than §§ in
acquaintance dyads may be due to the fact that they have
undergone the unique eXperience of unconditional positive
regard which according to Rogers' (1965) theory allows
a person to accept all his experience as his own and in
addition enhances a person's feelings of self-worth
because he becomes the controller of his own fate. Also
the person probably develops feelings of worth because
he is deemed worthy by a significant other in his environ—
ment, the therapist. In the relatively neutral acquaint-
ance process no such situation as unconditional positive
regard probably exists which allows the individual to
enhance his feelings of self—worth. Normally such con-
ditions are never present in life and therefore the
failure of the Sp in acquaintance dyads to exhibit such
high positive self-attitudes.

For the negative components, there is no such clear
cut difference between negative self—in-relationship

statements and negative self-attitude statements.

A2

Therapy clients made significantly greater negative self-
in—relationship statements across sessions. There was a
significant decrease for therapy clients across sessions
which is in support of Raimy's and Seeman's studies, but
what is somewhat surprising is the drop for the acquaint-
ance dyads which was significant at the .001 level. A
possibile explanation of this can be again found in
exchange theory. Negative self—disclosures are seen as
costs and although they may originally be produced as a
gesture of friendliness, the person discovers over time
that the rewards he's getting (the interaction with the
other person) is not worth the cost of disclosing negative
aspects Of his self.

For category six "unqualified negative self—
attitudes, there was no significant drop for therapy from
the first to the ninth session but the main difference
was in the right direction, the changes being from .07A
for the first session to .005 by the ninth. Once again
there were significantly more unqualified negative self-
attitude statements for therapy than acquaintance at the
.001 level of significance. The last significant result
and the significant difference between groups for
category three "unqualified negative self—in-relationship,”
shows that therapy clients perceive more inconsistencies
in their self-concepts than normals but over the process

Of therapy these inconsistencies decrease. For both the

a“-

 

“new.

“3

qualified negative categories, nine, self-in-relationship,
and twelve, self-attitudes, there were significant dif-
ferences between groups at the .001 level, the therapy
group being greater than the acquaintance group for both
categories. This has previously been explained as the
result of therapy clients perceiving inconsistencies
within their self—concept which are threatening to them
and have to be defended against while acquaintance dyads
do not perceive self-inconsistencies and therefore don't
guard against them. There being no change over sessions
in categories nine and twelve may be the result of some
unsuccessfully treated Clients who actually became more
defensive or might be a statistical artifact as these
categories occur so infrequently that it would be diffi-

cult to get significant differences.

Hypothesis IV

 

Hypothesis four was confirmed by the study. Ss
in acquaintance dyads made significantly more non—self-
statements than therapy clients. This is in accordance
with Leckey's concept of a need for self-consistency in
which those who feel inconsistent will have a tendency
to try and achieve consistency. This is also part Of
Rogers' (1965) theory in which he postulates a self-
actualization drive in which a person reorganizes his
self-concept to make it more consistent. Therefore a

major reason that therapy clients talk about themselves

AA

is that they have a need to make their selves consistent
and the best way to work it out is by talking about it
and reintegrating previously unacceptable experience into
a reorganized self—concept.

What is perhaps even more interesting and a sad
commentary on life is that there was a significant increase
in the proportion of non-self-statements for the Ss in
acquaintance dyads across sessions at the .001 level of
significance. This phenomenon could be explained by the
fact that in our society self-disclosure on the whole is
considered a cost. At the beginning of making a new
acquaintance people are somewhat willing to risk self—
disclosure, in the hOpe of bigger rewards, friendship,
love, sex. By the ninth session though it is probable
that the cost of self-disclosing has come to outweigh the
expectation of the rewards or the likelihood Of the
rewards have so dimmed that they are not worth the costs.

Alternative Explanations: A Social
Psychological Analysis

Possible explanations for the last and previous
hypotheses are rendered by the social psychological
theories of Mead, Cooley, and Goffman.

In Mead's self theory (in Manis and Meltzer, 1967)
through the course of associations with others, one
builds up a "generalized other," a generalized role

standpoint from which he views himself and others.

A5

This generalized other allows an individual to act with

a certain amount of consistency in a variety of situations
because he acts in accordance with a generalized set of
expectations and definitions that he has internalized.
Mead's theory would support the hypotheses in the present
study because he says that every act begins in the form
of an "I" and usually ends in the form of "Me." Thus the
initiation of any act comes under the control of the
definitions or expectations of others which is the "Me"
or "generalized other." Therefore since the expectatiOns
of others is different in the therapy and acquaintance
situations, it is to be predicted according to Mead's
theory that the self-descriptive statements will vary in
the two situations.

Cooley (in Meltzer and Manis, 1967) talks of a
social self. PeOple learn from infancy that their actions
cause different reactions in others. He postulates that
peOple learn to act in such ways with others that will
best enhance their self-feeling. Therefore they learn
to act differently towards different peOple as the person
comprehends that the different people he is in contact
with will approve of different things. Cooley calls
this social self the "looking glass self" because one's
attitude towards oneself depends upon what we think others
think of us. According to Cooley's theory of self, the

predictions in this study would be the same as if we

A6

used self—consistency theory or the self of Rogers. The
therapy and acquaintance processes have different demand
qualities to them, so based on Cooley's system an
individual will act one way in the therapy situation to
enhance his self-feeling and another in the acquaintance
situation. TO be more specific in therapy one tries to
gain the approval of the therapist by talking about his
problems, his negative self, while in the acquaintance
process one is more likely to avoid talking about his
self, especially his negative self, as it is generally
looked down upon as self—centeredness to talk about one's
problems.

Goffman (in Meltzer and Manis, 1967) is more general
than Cooley in his theory of self. Goffman too believes
that people act differently in different situations.
Instead of limiting the motive for people's social inter-
action to enhancement of self-feeling, Goffman says
that there may be many motives. In different situations,
people will have different objectives and whatever the
motive for these objectives, the individual will try and
control the relationship he has entered into by defining
the situation. Generally a person will try and act so
as to get others to react to him in a way that is to his
interests. Therefore people will use different ploys
or act in different ways depending on which way is most

to their advantage in the given situation and once again

 

A7

individuals' will try and make different impressions in
both the therapy and acquaintance processes. Both
Goffman and Cooley provide an alternate explanation
from Lecky's and Rogers' explanation of the phenomenon
Observed in this study. For Cooley and Goffman it is

the situation (external variables) that causes immediate

 

differential behavior while for the latter theoreticians A
it is the person's problems or overall concept of his
"self" (internal variables). For this study it is not

important to decide who is right or wrong since both their

 

predictions would be the same, but for future studies it t
might be worthwhile as well as interesting to devise an
experiment to see whether people's self behavior is con-
sistent in different situations supporting the theory of
self—consistency or changes according to the situation
which would support the social psychological vieWpOint.
All these theories relate to the demand qualities
of the situation and easily explain the difference found
between the acquaintance and therapy dyads as their
demand qualities change. These theories also conceivably
can explain the changes across sessions within groups as

the demand qualities of the situation change.

External Validigy

 

Before concluding, it is necessary to discuss the

restrictions on the external validity of this study.

A8

It is, first of all, limited to female college
students. The therapeutic situation was one in a college
counseling center and the results must not be taken to be
affirmative for other forms of therapy with clients of
different ages and/or problems. The acquaintance process
was also one that had special conditions that are not
typical of those in the outside world and may have caused r
different effects. That is, the §L§ were strangers who
were committed to attending the acquaintance sessions,

for course credit, for the full length of the study while

 

persons normally have more leeway in selecting their

B!“ 1- .ve'

acquaintances.

Another important aspect is whether there is any
external validity at all to the study. DO changes Sp
therapy correlate with similar changes in situations
outside of therapy? Such a question must be left for
future research. Another interestirg question raised for
future investigation is whether the process of therapy,
in itself, produces the changes found in this study or
whether changes are solely the result of the motivation
on the part of clients to seek help. A design for
future study that could test these alternative hypotheses
would be to select as §L§ persons who seek help and
randomly assign half to the therapy process and the other
half to the acquaintance process and then see if there

are differences.

A9

Concluding Remarks

 

An important question raised for further research
is what goes on during the process of therapy to change
the demand qualities, if indeed they do change? What
is even more important is to run a study to see whether
the significant changes that were found in this study

during the process of therapy (whether these changes were

__ ““1

due to a need for self-consistency or the changing demand
qualities Of the situation) are related to changes out-
side Of therapy. This is the only true way of seeing

whether therapy is effective. One might agree that if

 

such a relationship was found this would support self-
consistency theory but a social psychologist might just
as well argue that due to the therapeutic eXperience one
learns new behaviors and therefore also will act dif-
ferently in different situations. Despite either
explanation, the results of such a study would still be
useful in seeing whether therapy is effective and if so

what kinds for which kind of peOple.

CHAPTER V

SUMMARY

The purpose of this study was to see the relation-

ships among Openness and guardedness about "self" and

self—esteem in the therapy and acquaintance processes.

' _‘ “Fix-5:“

It was decided to gather the data by coding the verbal

behavior from tapes of therapy sessions and of acquaint-

 

ance sessions. The coding system for Openness and guarded-
ness about self was taken from the Ashby §£_2S3 study
(1956) and for self-esteem from Raimy's (19A8) study.

The first and ninth sessions were coded for both types

Of processes, coding being divided into fifteen second
intervals. Two raters were trained according to the

coding systems until they achieved a .9A Pearson product-
moment correlation reliability.

The therapy tapes used were from the Counseling
Center library at M.S.U. Eleven therapy clients were
chosen for the study. They were all college coeds who
had completed at least nine sessions with a male therapist.
The acquaintance tapes used were from a study by Conway
(1968). All the tapes consisted of conversations between
male-female dyads. The subjects in this study were also
college students at M.S.U. who met once a week for course

50

51

credit and also finished at least nine sessions. To fur-
ther equate the two groups, only the statements Of the
female member of the acquaintance dyads were coded. A
rating scale was devised to meet Rogers' (195A) criteria
of what was a self statement. According to his criteria
any statement which had an "I," "Me," "we," or "Us" was
coded a self statement. Further pursuing his definition of
a self statement, three valences were placed on self state-
ments: positive, negative, and neutral. Two other dimen—
sions were then added, qualified-unqualified statements and
self attitude—self-in-relationship statements. All state-
ments by the S were coded into one of these twelve self
categories or into a thirteenth category,non-self statements.
The proportion of statements in a category to total
statements was used as the unit of measure. The three main
variables Of the study consisted of different combinations
of the twelve self categories. Openness about self con-
sisted of the category "unqualified negative self—in-
relationship" and also of the category "unqualified negative
self-attitudes." Guardedness consisted of the categories,
"qualified negative self-in-relationship and self—attitudes."
Self-esteem consisted of the proportion of "unqualified
positive self-in-relationship and self-attitudes" to quali-
fied and unqualified negative self-in-relationship and self-

attitudes'i plus "unqualified positive" self statements.

52

On the basis of previous studies and Lecky's
"theory of self-consistency" and Rogers' "self" theory,
the following hypotheses were postulated:

l. Openness and guardedness would be initially

higher in therapy than the acquaintance
process but would converge over time.

2. Openness and guardedness would be positively
correlated in therapy while no such relation-
ship should exist in the acquaintance process.

3. Self-esteem should increase over time in the
therapy process while no change should take
place in the acquaintance process.

A. There should be significantly more self
statements in the therapeutic process than in
the acquaintance process.

The results for hypothesis one confirmed that
initially there would be more Openness and guardedness in
the therapy process and also showed a trend towards con-
vergence between the two groups although it was not sig-
nificant. The results for hypothesis two were somewhat
startling but seems to be in support of self—consistency
theory. Initially Openness and guardedness are highly
correlated in therapy but by the ninth session are slightly
negatively correlated. A possible explanation for this
change may be that many of the clients have achieved self-
consistency and although they elicit Openness statements,
they no longer feel threatened and become guarded. This
seems to be the case for the normative pOpulation as
represented by the acquaintance process where the correla-

tion stays at .0 across sessions, mainly because the

acquaintance members do not become guarded.

 

 

53

For hypothesis three a trend towards increase in
self—esteem was found for therapy clients, while no such
change occurred in the acquaintance process. The results
were somewhat confounded and it is believed the change
would have been much greater if outcome measures of
success in treatment were taken for the therapy clients.

The fourth hypothesis was confirmed. An additional
significant finding was that over time the proportion
Of self statements significantly decreased in the
acquaintance process.

It was suggested for future research that outcome
measures on success in therapy should be taken to see
what changes in the self variables under study covary with
successful or unsuccessful treatment in therapy. It was
also suggested that a wider sample be drawn as the con-
clusions reached are limited to female college students
in a counseling center situation and may not apply to
other forms of therapy and other clients with other types
of problems. It was further suggested that instead of
choosing a certain number of sessions to be studied, that
acquaintance dyads be matched with therapy clients and
that the acquaintance dyads continue meeting as long as
the client continues therapy. Finally a good study for
future research would be to select from persons seeking
help in therapy, a sample; half Of which would be randomly
assigned to the therapeutic process and the other half to

the acquaintance process.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

5A

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allport, G. W. Is the concept of self necessary? The ./
Self and Social Interaction. Gordon, C. and
Gergen, K. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1968.

Ashby, J., Ford, P., Guerney, B., and Guerney, L. Effects
Of reflective and leading psychotherapy. Psycho- I
therapy Research. Stollak, G., Guerney, B., and
Rothberg, M. (eds.) Chicago: Rand, McNally and
Co., 1966.

 

Butler, J. M., and Haigh, G. V. Changes in the relation
between self-concepts and ideal concepts consequent
upon client-centered counselinf. In Counseling and v/
Psychotherapy. Rogers, C. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
and Co., 1965.

 

If‘“

 

Cattell, R. B. Personality: A Systematic Theoretical and
Factual Study. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950.

 

Chodorkoff, B. Self-perception, perceptual defense, and ,
adjustment. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 195A, AS,”
pp. 508-512.

Conway, D. The experience of empathy, genuineness, warmth,
and Openness in the acquaintance process. M.A. thesis,
Michigan State University, 1968.

Cooley, D. Looking Glass Self. In Symbolic Interaction. ,,
Menis, J. and Meltzer, B. (eds.). Boston: Allen and
Bacon, 1967.

COOpersmith, S. The Antecedents of Self—Esteem. San “
Francisco: Freeman and Co., 1967.

Dymond, R. Adjustment changes over therapy from self—
sorts. In Counseling and Psychotherapy, Rogers, C.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1965.

.Edwards, A. L. The Social Desirability Variable in Per-
sonalipy Assessment and Research. New York: Dryden,

1957.

IFreud, S. The Ego and the Id. Strachey, J. (ed.). New V
York: Norton and Co., 1960.

55

56

Goffman, E. Presentation of self to others. In S mbolic ~/
Interaction. Menis, J. and Meltzer, B. (eds.).
Boston: Allen and Bacon, 1962.

 

Gordon, C., and Gergen, K. The Self and Social Interaction.”
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Gordon, C. Self—conceptions: configurations Of content.
In The Self and Social Interaction. Gordon, C. and
Gergen, K. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1968.

 

Haigh, G. Defensive behavior and client-centered therapy.
Journal of Consulting Psychology, 13, 19A9, pp. 181—187.

 

Hall, C., and Lindzey, G. Theories of Personality, New
York: John Wiley and Sons, 1957.

 

James, W. Principles of Psychology. H. Hall and Co., 1890.
Revised in Vol. I, Dover Publ., 1950, New York.

 

Kenny, D. T. The influence Of social desirability on
discrepancy measures between real self and ideal
self. Journal of Consulting_PsychOlogy, SS, 1956,
pp' 315-3180

 

Lecky, P. Theory of self—consistency. In The Self and J
Social Interaction. Menis, J.£nfl.Meltzer, R.(eds.).
Boston: Allen and Bacon, 1967.

 

 

Marx, M., and Hilix, W. The Systems and Theories in
Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.

 

Meltzer, B. Mead's Social Psychology. Symbolic Inter-
action. Menis, J. and Meltzer, B. (eds.). Boston:
Allen and Bacon, 1967.

 

Raimy, V. Self reference in counseling interviews.
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163.

Rogers, C. The case of Mrs. Oaks: A research analysis.
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Rogers, C. R. Client Centered Therapy. Boston: Houghton
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Rogers, C. B., and Dymond, R. Psychotherapy and Personality”
Change. Chicago: University 0 Chicago Press, 195A.

 

 

 

 

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Rogers, C. R. The significance of the self-regarding atti-v
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John Wiley and Sons, 1968.

Rudikoff, E. Comparative Study of the changes of the con-
cept of self, the orginary person andthe ideal in
eight cases. In Counseling and Psychotherapy.
Rogers, C. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19A2.

Secord, P., and Backman, D. Social Psychology. New York:
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Seeman, J. The process of non-directive therapy. Journal
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Seidenberg, B., and Proshansky, H. (eds.). Basic Studies
in Social Psychology. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and

Winston, 1965.

 

 

Sheerer, E. Acceptance of self and acceptance of others. a
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175.

Stephenson, W. The Study of Behavior. Chicago: University
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Thibaut, J. W., and Kelly, H. H. The Social Psychology
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Winer, B. J. Statistical Principles in Egperimental Design.
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1962.

Wylie, R. The Self Concept. Lincoln: University Of
Nebraska Press, 1961.

APPENDICES

58

 

APPENDIX A

Rating Scale

59

 

60

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ma NH Ha OH m w s m m a m m H Hm>hmucH
wmz ampusmz mom wmz Hmppsmz mom wmz Hmnpsmz mom wmz ampusoz mom
Awammlcozv eggpfiuumnmamm .HmmIcHumamm weapfipumanmm .Hcmchlmamm
mpmnpo ucmsmpmpm .Hmsa encampmpm .HMSOCD

 

mamom mafipmm

APPENDIX B

Analyses of Variances for Main Variables

61

 

62

TABLE 2.—-Summary of Analysis of Variance for Self-

 

 

 

Esteem.
Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .350 l .350 7-95**
Ss within groups .882 20 .0AA
Sessions .003 l .003 .11
Groups X Sessions .107 1 .107 3097*
Error: Sess X Ss
within groups .5A3 20 .027
*
p < .10
**
p < .025

TABLE 3.--Summary of Analysis of Variance for Openness.

 

 

 

Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .303 l .303 68.8*
Ss within groups .088 20 .00AA
Sessions .005 l .005 .53
Sess X groups .001 l .001 .10
Error: Sess X Ss

within groups .191 20 .0095

c

p < .001

." :‘L- 9r." 3‘

 

63

TABLE A.--Summary Of Analysis of Variance for Guardedness.

 

 

 

Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .029 l .029 29*
Ss within groups .023 20 .001
Sessions .000A 1 .000” '67
Sessions X groups 0 l O 0 5
Error: Sess X Ss ;
within groups .012 20 .0006 i
g
,2.
e i
p < .001

 

APPENDIX C

Analyses Of Simple Effects

6A

 

65

TABLE 5. --Summary Of Analysis is Simple Effects for

Self Esteem.

 

Simple Effects

for level a

H

for level a2
Simple effects

for level b

of factor B (sessions)
(therapy

(groups)

of factor A (groups)
(session 1)

(session 9)

.333
.OAO

8.23* r
A.77**

 

l

for level b2
i

p < .01
**

p < .05

 

TABLE 6.--Summary of Analysis of Simple Effects for
"Unqualified negative self-in-relationship" statements.

 

Simple Effects

for factor B (sessions)

 

for level a1 (therapy) = 13.33**
for level a2 (Acq) = A6.6*
Simple effects for factor A (groups)

for level bl (session 1) = 1A.1A*
for level b2 (session 9) = 19.51*

c

p < .001
i!

66

TABLE 7.--Category A: Summary of Analysis of Simple
Effects for "Unqualified positive self-attitude" state-
ments.

 

Simple Effects for factor B (sessions)

 

 

for level al (therapy) F = 18.A6*
for level a2 (Acq) F = .61
Simple Effects of factor A (groups) ,
for level b1 (session 1) F = .19 {i
for level b2 (session 9) F = 9.80** A
* 1
p < .001
cc ,
p < .005 L

TABLE 8.—-Category 13: Summary Of Analysis of Simple
Effects for "non-self" statements.

 

Simple Effects for factor B (sessions)

for level a1 (therapy) F = .167

for level a2 (Acq) F = 16.16*
Simple Effects for factor A (groups)

for level bl (session 1) F = 17.29*

for level b2 (session 9) F = 2A.90*

 

&
p < .001

APPENDIX D

 

ANOVAS for Components of
Experimental Variables

67

68

TABLE 9.--Category 1: Summary of Analysis of Variance
for "Unqualified positive self—in-relationship" state-

 

 

 

 

ments.
Source of Variation SS df F
Groups .001 l .5
Ss within groups .0A9 20
Sessions .002 l .67 E
Sess X groups .000 l O 2
Error: Sess X Ss j
within groups .059 20
i
a
i-

TABLE lO.--Category 2: Summary of Analysis of Variance
for "Unqualified neutral self—in-relationship" state-
ments.

 

 

Source Of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .0163 l .0163 l.A29
Ss within groups .2272 20 .011A
Sessions .001 l .001 .5
Sess X groups .002 l .002 .67

Error: Sess X Ss
within groups .0562 20 .0028

 

69

TABLE 11.-—Category 3: Summary of Analysis of Variance
for "Unqualified negative self-in-relationship" state-

 

 

 

ments.
Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .136 l .136 17*
Ss within groups .161 20 .008
Sessions ' .008 1 .008 53.333*
Sess X groups .001 l .001 6.666**
Error: Sess X Ss
within groups .003 20 .0015
c
p < .001
*i
p < .025

TABLE l2.--Category A: Summary of Analysis Of Variance
for "Unqualified positive self-in-relationship" state-

 

 

 

ments.
Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .0016 1 .0016 A.00***
Ss within groups .0089 20 .000A
Sessions .0003 l .0003 A.615**
Sess X groups .0010 1 .0010 15.38A*
Error: Sess X SS
within groups .0013 20 .000065
5
p < .001
ii
p < .05
use

p < .10

n m.‘

 

[Fa . .,Q ..

70

TABLE 13.-—Category 6: Summary of Analysis Of variance
for "Unqualified negative self-attitude" statements.

 

Source of Variation SS df MS F

 

 

Groups .0033 1 .0333 27.75*
Ss within groups .02A6 20 .0012
Sessions .0003 1 .0003 .2727
Sess X groups .0000 1 0 0
Error: Sess X Ss
within groups .0220 20 .0011
a
p < .001

TABLE lA.--Category 9: Summary Of Analysis of Variance
for "Qualified negative self-in-relatiOnship" statements.

 

 

Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .0139 l .0139 36.57*
Ss within groups .0077 20 .00038

Sessions 0 1 O 0
Sess X groups .0001 l .0001 .5

Error: Sess X Ss
within groups .0053 20 .00026

 

*
p < {001

 

tt___

TABLE 15.-¥Category 12:

71

Summary of Analysis of Variance

for "Qualified negative self-attitude" statements.

 

 

Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .0025 l .0025 7.352*
Ss within groups .0069 20 .0003A
Sessions 0 1 0 0
Sess X groups 0 l 0 0
Error: Sess X Ss

within groups .0023 20 .0001

 

*
p < .025

TABLE 16.--Category 13:

Summary of Analysis of Variance

~‘« ‘1.- or-d' 1"

 

 

 

for "Non-self" statements.

Source of Variation SS df MS F
Groups .597 l .597 22.96*
Ss within groups .531 20 .026
Sessions .008 l .008 1.333
Sess X groups .090 l .090 15*
Error: Sess X Ss

within groups .120 20 .006

 

*
p < .001

APPENDIX E

Correlations Between Openness
and Guardedness

72

'3' c. ‘5”1'. v '°

 

73

TABLE 17.-—Openness-Guardedness Correlations for
the First and Ninth Sessions and Across Sessions
in both the Therapy and Acquaintance Processes.

 

 

Op.-Gu. ope-GL1. ope-Gun
Sess 1 Sess 9 Total over
Sessions
Th. .62 -o26 0006

Acq. 0 0 0

 

 

 

lF‘- cult-r

APPENDIX F

Raw Data: Proportion Scores for all
Categories and Variables for all Ss.

7A

 

 

 

75

 

Hom. mHo. o. o. omo. ooo. Hoo. moo. o. moo. moo. ooo. ooH. w o memo
ooo.: osH. o. o. oom. moo. ooo. oHo. o. mmo. Hmo.o oHo.o oHH.H o o mwmo
omm. mHo. o. Hoo. omo. Hoo. Hoo. ooo. o. ooo. ooo. moo. moo. m H mmoo
ooo.m ooH. o. ooo. ooo. mHo. HHo. oHo. o. ooo. omo.o omo.o moo.H o H mmoo
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APPENDIX G

Coding System for the Three Main
Experimental Variables: Openness,
Guardedness, and Self-Esteem

79

 

Coding78ystem

 

Openness about Self

 

l. Unqualified admission to a problem, deficiency,
inadequacy, undesirable characteristic, trait, behavior
pattern or act, feeling attitude.

2. Unqualified statements pointing to personal
deviation from the norm in a culturally or personally
undesirable direction.

3. Unqualified statements that admit to possession
of culturally or personally undesirable characteristics,
traits, behaviors, feelings or attitudes.

Note: Simple acceptance of a therapist's statement
placing the client in an undesirable light is not scored
"Open." It is only when the client proceeds in such a
way as to place his statement under any of the criteria
listed above that his statement is categorized "Open."

A simple statement of a problem qualifies as an
"Open" response if it is unqualified.

A description Of a particular conflict is not
necessarily "Open." But an unqualified admission of having
important unresolved contradictions or irrationalities
within oneself is categorized "Open."

The following statements are some examples to

clarify the categorization of "Openness":

80

--:nmmu ' nu-

 

 

81

1. Client (speaking about husband or father): "As
far as really deep feelings--I have none for him." . . . O.
This is an unqualified admission to culturally unacceptable
attitude or feeling.

2. "My conversational ability is pretty weak. I
can't carry on a long continuous conversation." . . . O.
This is an unqualified admission of an inadequacy.

3. Therapist: "That seems kind of contradictory."
Client: "When I think about it, that's true; as far as
things have gone in the past I have no reason to feel

inferior." . . . O. The client accepts and elaborates

 

upon therapist statement pointing to important contradiction
or irrationality in client.

A. "Most of the time I'm worried about people--
what they're thinking Of me." . . . O. This is an
unqualified admission of a psychological problem.

5. Therapist: "And you feel like he's thinking only
of himself." Client: "Not exactly. I don't blame him
particularly. I guess I do in a way. I don't want to,
but I do. I want him to accept me and my needs." . . . O.
This is an admission to a feeling toward which a personal

distaste is made clear.

Guardedness about Self
I. Is the client protecting himself from potential

criticism or potential change in his self-concept?

 

82

1. Statement denying, qualifying, or minimizing, or
belittling the extent of a problem or the existence of one.
The denial is not in response to a question or statement of
the therapist or any other particular person.

2. Statement points to non-deviation from the norm,
average, everyone, others either as a person in general
or some particular thought, feeling or behavior. Has to
be comforting to the client.

3. Statement denying possession of an undesirable
characteristic, trait, feeling, attitude, or denying an
undesirable act or motivation. Characteristic has to be
attributed to oneself.

A. Justification of an act, feeling, thought. Hold
forth one's behavior as just, right, warranted to show a
satisfactory excuse for something that is culturally or
personally undesirable. The reason offered by the client
is usually one that is primarily outside of theself, the
undesirable thing is a result of the behavior of others or
circumstances.

5. A statement indicating that the client might be
anticipating a critical or differing thought or statement.
Plural number of qualifications.

II. The latter part of a client's statement is
:important. Self—blame followed by blaming of outside

fkactors is then guardedness.

 

83

Examples:

1. "I wonder if I have any problems. Maybe it's
just that I think I have problems. Maybe that's all there
is to the whole thing." . . . G. This is a minimiza—
tion of the problem.

2. "I guess everybody feels that way about some-
thing." . . . G. This is self-stimulated pointing to
non-deviation from the norm.

1 3. "I was proud of the medal and showed it to
everyone as every successful athlete would." . . . G.
The client is pointing to a non-deviation from the norm
in regard to the culturally frowned upon trait of pride.

A. "I don't like to visit my family because when
I have too much work to do, it bothers me." . . . G.
Justification.

5. Therapist: "You feel inferior to them." Client:
"Maybe that's true. "I don't know. Anyway they kept
talking about things with which I wasn't familiar which I
thought was very inconsiderate of them." . . . G. It is
a double qualified acceptance-—overt acceptance while

emotionally rejected.

Self-Esteem

 

A. Self-esteem is divided into positive self—esteem
and negative self-esteem.
1. Positive self-esteem is any self-descriptive

statement referring to a characteristic or ability Of the

8A

self which is an unqualified statement of a positive
aspect of the self.

2. Negative self-esteem is any qualified or unquali-
fied statement of a negative aspect of the self which
refers to a characteristic or ability (or lack of ability)
of the self.

B. Both positive and negative self—esteem are any
statements in which a person perceives himself as a person
of some degree of worth (or unworthiness). Thus self—
esteem is a personal judgment of worthiness that is
expressed in the attitudes the individual holds towards
himself. Thus any statement that indicates the extent to
which the individual perceives himself to be capable,
significant, successful, andworthy is a self-esteem

statement.

Examples:

1. I'm a good husband. Positive self—esteem.
Person considers himself as a worthy individual.

2.. I love myself. Positive self-esteem. Person
considers himself an object worth loving and thus
personally desirable. Also an Openness statement as to
admit that one loves oneself is culturally undesirable.

3. "I can't do anything right." Negative self—

esteem. Personally undesirable characteristic of one's

self.

85

A. "I play golf very well." Positive self-esteem.
Statement of worth. Attribute of person that makes him
capable and worthy. "I really like playing golf" would
not be a self-esteem statement as it refers to the self-
in-relationship to its environment rather than the
statement describing a good golfer while in the latter
the statement describes 222 what the self is but what it
likes to do.

5. "I am a really lousy businessman." Negative
self-esteem. Negative aspect of self that is a characteris-
tic Of the self. This is a personally undesirable aspect

of the self.

AUG

791,289

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