The Effect of Interviewer Status and Respondent Sex on Symptom Reporting

This study investigated whether males and females differ in their reporting behaviour to interviewers of contrasting status backgrounds, specifically psychiatric physicians and lay interviewers. Subjects were 200 adults. A 263-item instrument was utilised to measure functional psychological disorder. Interviews took place under three conditions: (1) a physician conducting the interview made his or her status known; (2) a physician conducting the interview did not make his or her status known; and (3) lay interviewers conducted the interview and made their status known. Results indicate that women give the most information about their symptomatology to unidentified physicians and report the least to identified doctors. Males tend to report more symptoms to identified physician interviewers. Social training may explain these contrasting performances. Women may be more responsive to interpersonal interaction, and therefore to the interviewing skill of the unidentified physicians. Men may be more responsive to interviewer status, and less to interpersonal skill; consequently, they report more to identified physicians. Also, women may feel threatened by a high-status figure, being unaccustomed to lengthy interaction outside of evaluative contexts, and thus lack the trust necessary for self-disclosure in an interview.