Recent research has shown that when subjects are asked to make a judgment or decision based on incomplete information, they may infer or impute a value for the missing information based on their perception of the relationship between the missing and the presented information. To examine how clients evaluate and choose between therapists on the basis of actual and/or inferred qualifications, 63 students were asked to rate the competence of hypothetical clinical psychologists on the basis of the clinicians' experience in treating college-age patients with severe depression resulting from loneliness, and their familiarity with recent developments in treatment. Some clinicans were described by both factors, experience and familiarity with recent developments. Others were described by only one of these factors. A scenario was developed whereby subjects would expect a negative relationship between factors. Analysis of the relationship between responses on single-factor trials and responses on two-factor trials showed that the majority of subjects used the inferred negative relationship between factors to respond to situations with missing information. Furthermore, those subjects who placed the greatest weight on the experience factor were most apt to infer experience from familiarity, and those subjects who placed greatest weight on the familiarity factor were most apt to infer familiarity from experience. (Author/JAC)