This study tested the validity of Petty and Cacioppo's [(1981), Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches,Dubuque, Brown] Elaboration Likelihood Mode of persuasion in a therapy analogue setting. The effects of source credibility, message quality, and issue involvement on social influence were investigated in a 2 ×2 ×2 factorial design. In contrast to previous social psychology theorizing, results indicated that subjects were primarily influenced by high-quality messages, suggestive of central route processing. Implications for client-counselor interactions in relation to Strong's interpersonal influence model were discussed.