This study tested the effects of exposure to a (first) bogus stranger exhibiting one of three different degrees of attitude similarity (.90, .50, or .10) on perceived similarity and attraction to a second stranger expressing a medium (.50) degree of attitude similarity. Perceived similarity and attraction to the second stranger were inversely related to the degree of attitude similartiy of the first stranger experienced by the subjects. The findings confirmed the adaptation-level prediction of "perceptual contrast" and supported the notion that perceptual or judgmental processes mediate the "sequence effects" on attraction. The data were also interpreted as supportive of Thibaut and Kelly's theory of social exchange.
Measures of attitude extremity and measures of latitudes of acceptance, rejection and indifference were administered to 87 Ss (male college students) in order to test social-judgment hypotheses about the relationships among those variables. Pearsonian correlations were computed between extremity scores and sizes of the latitudes. Part of the data provided limited support to social-judgment predictions, but other parts disconfirmed some of the predictions. Different relationships were obtained between extremity and latitudes with the two different measures of attitude extremity (a semantic-differential scale and a Thurstone-type scale) used in this investigation. Possible explanations for the results were discussed, and suggestions were made for further research to answer some of the questions raised.
The purpose of this study was to explain the concept of attitude (and its measurement) in terms of expectancy-value theory and to test the hypothesis that attitudes are enduring evaluative expectations towards an object. A disguised measure of evaluative expectations on the Vietnam war based on a category-width task, two further category width scales on different issues, and two attitude measures (Le., a Thurstone and a semanticdifferential scale on Vietnam) were administered to eighty-seven male college students. Degree of structure (information) was manipulated in all categorization measures. As predicted, evaluative expectations were significantly related to attitude scores. Also, the structure variable affected relationships among categorization variables but not the relationship between evaluative expectations and attitudes. In addition, it was found that generalization of categorization tendencies decreased as the attitudinal relevance of the issue increased.
This experiment tested the effects of three levels of judgmental similarity on evaluative-attraction and on uncertainty reduction. A significant increase in evaluative-attraction and a nonsignificant increase in certainty were found, as similarity in quantitative (error-choice type) judgments increased. The findings extended the generality of the similarity-attraction hypothesis and suggested limited support for the effectance-reduction hypothesis.
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