The effects of advisor style on overcoming client resistance in the advising interview

Abstract

This study examines how two factors contribute to the genesis and escalation of conflict in the texts of 14 actual advising interviews. The two factors examined are advisor role dilemma/role coalescence and use of foot‐in‐the‐door (FITD) or door‐in‐the‐face (DITF) strategies. Advisors must judge the relative merit of student requests. Moment by moment, they must decide whether their role as student advocate or institutional gatekeeper is paramount. Often, these roles are contradictory. Decisions pose difficulty when they involve fairness and equal distribution of resources. Advisors might wish to be the student protector and friend, but their obligation to uphold the university rulebook often interferes. For their part, students seeking concessions often adopt FITD techniques as a way of buying time before refusal. Even though they are not aware that research supports them, students sense that it is much more difficult for an advisor to refuse a second request when they have agreed to the first. But advis...