Effects of Reciprocal Peer Counseling on College Student Personality Development

Abstract

Volunteer college students were trained to provide personal counseling for each other using a reciprocating “counselor-then-counselee” approach. Two different peer counseling approaches were compared with professional counseling and no counseling controls on the Personal Orientation Inventory, the FIRO-B, and two experimental scales assessing emotionality and sex-role behavior. From pre- to posttesting the counseled groups demonstrated significantly greater positive change than the controls on several variables, with the peer counseling groups showing greater gain than the professionally counseled. The approach is seen as effectively providing further movement along the dimension of de-professionalizing helping relations.