Effects of diagnostician prestige and sex upon subjects' acceptance of genuine personality feedback

Examined subjects' acceptance of genuine, test-based personality feedback as a function of diagnostician prestige and sex, subject sex, and diagnostician. It was found that subjects of both sexes rated the feedback provided by female diagnosticians as significantly more accurate than that provided by male diagnosticians. This was attributable in part to a tendency for subjects to greatly devalue the feedback provided, by low prestige, male diagnosticians, Support for the generalizability of the present results from the social psychological literature was noted and suggestions for future research were provided.