Effects of the presence of a pet in the counselor's office on institutionalized and noninstitutionalized adolescents' perception of counselor credibility

Results of previous studies in the field of pet therapy have indicated that pets may alter people's perception of their environment and even change the way people are perceived by others. The present study investigated the effects of the presence of a pet in the counselor's office on institutionalized and noninstitutionalized adolescents' perception of counselor credibility, thus combining two areas of research: pet therapy and the interpersonal influence model of counseling.

Subjects were 142 adolescents from three different settings: a juvenile detention center, a residential care facility, and a public school. Subjects from each setting were randomly assigned to a pet-present or a pet-absent group. They heard an audiotaped counselor introduction and then viewed photographs of four counselors, either with or without a pet dog at the counselors' side.

The study also sought to assess the effects of counselor gender on credibility ratings, since all subjects viewed both male and female counselors. Counselor credibility was measured by the Counselor Rating Form - Short Version. Subjects' attitudes toward pets were also evaluated using the Pet Attitude Scale.

Results of analyses on pet attitudes showed that the subjects from the residential care facility had significantly more favorable attitudes than subjects from the other two settings. A two-way analysis of variance using the total counselor credibility score as the dependent variable showed no significant differences in ratings in regard to the presence or absence of a pet or to institutional setting and also found no significant interaction. However, counselor credibility ratings were higher for the pet-present group in all three settings, and this trend was constant across all three of the subscales of attractiveness, expertness, and trustworthiness. These positive trends suggest that the presence of a pet holds potential for enhancing perceived counselor credibility.

A t-test for correlated data, using subjects' male counselor credibility ratings and female counselor credibility ratings as compared variables, found that ratings for female counselors were significantly higher than ratings for male counselors across all three settings, and this effect was much more pronounced in the two institutional settings.