Psychological counselors' self: An ecological recognition of Big Five personality traits based on column blogs in China

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Abstract
There is a huge demand of psychological counseling in China, given the growing pains along with dramatic social changes. However, it remains unclear whether psychological counselors hold special psychological qualities as compared to the general population, especially when it is hard to assess psychological professionals' personality using self-reported methods. Based on the ecological recognition technology, the present research is to explore psychological counselors' personality traits, and to examine the possible effect of gender, therapeutic orientation, and years of experience on personality. One hundred and thirty-one counselors' introduction and articles on the “Yi Psychology” were collected to analyze their personality using Big Five personality prediction model. The results revealed that psychological counselors showed a higher level of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, but lower extraversion and neuroticism, as compared to norm groups. In addition, there was significant relationship of the counselors' personality to gender and years of experience, but not to their therapeutic orientation. Taken together, the current findings demonstrate the different profile of personality traits among Chinese psychological counselors, compared with norm group. The applications for clinical trainings and selection are discussed.
Funding Information
  • China Social Science Fund (17AZD041)

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