TY - JOUR A1 - Blanz, Mathias A1 - Hausschmid, Svenja T1 - Factors Influencing Social Workers' Relationship to Their Clients: A Test of Social Psychological Theories JF - International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies N2 - The study examines the application of general social psychological theories on the development of relationships between people (mere exposure effect, similarity-attraction effect, triangular theory of love) to the special case of the relationship between counselor and client. Two hundred and twenty-eight social workers from Germany took part in the online survey on their relationship with their clients. The results show that (1) the degree of familiarity with clients increases with the frequency of contact with them, (2) the degree of perceived similarity with clients increases with the quality of the relationship, and (3) social workers' tendency to experience romantic feelings toward clients is influenced by the desire for emotional and physical closeness and the willingness to form a long-term commitment. Finally, the implications of the results for shaping the relationship in social work are discussed. KW - Counselor-Client Relationship KW - Social Work KW - Mere Exposure Effect KW - Similarity-Attraction Effect KW - Triangular Theory of Love Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.62557/2394-6296.110403 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 19 EP - 27 ER -