Mediators of clinical judgment: an exploration of the effect of therapists' locus of control on clinical expectations.

In this study, written case vignettes that manipulated locus of control symptoms, class, and sex of the clients were presented to 174 Australian clinical psychologists. Therapists' expectations of success with clients presented in the vignettes were found to be primarily a function of the interaction between the therapist's and the hypothetical client's locus of control. In addition, some variance was explained by the symptoms of clients in the vignettes. Clients with mild problems were generally rated more favorably than clients with severe problems.