It is widely held that similarity of attitudes promotes interpersonal attraction. However, Rosenbaum (1986a) argued that the relationship between attitudinal similarity and attraction is actually a relationship between attitudinal dissimilarity and repulsion. Contrasting predictions of the similarity‐attraction and dissimilarity‐repulsion hypotheses were tested in a main within‐subjects experiment. Ninety subjects first judged a stranger, a randomly sampled same‐sex university student, in a no‐attitude information control condition. Later they judged the same student again, knowing that the stranger shared 0.00, 0.50 or 1.00 proportion of similar attitudes with them (N = 30). As predicted by the similarity‐attraction hypothesis, both similar and dissimilar attitudes affected attraction. Moreover, the effects of similar and dissimilar attitudes were contingent upon the level of similarity of attitudes assumed by the subjects in the no‐attitude information control condition. In an auxiliary between‐subjects experiment, attraction response was also higher in the experimental condition of similar attitudes (N = 19) than in the control condition of no‐attitude information (N = 20). These results reaffirm the similarity‐attraction relationship but reject the dissimilarity‐repulsion hypothesis. In addition, they call attention to the proper consideration of assumed similarity in Byrne's (1971) reinforcement‐affect model.

A novel experimental method, shift-rate recovery, was developed and used in a series of three experiments. These examined the extent to which 6-month-old infants (N = 131) find perceptual cues such as density and length useful in the discrimination of linearly arranged sets containing large numbers of objects. Results showed that infants discriminated between arrays that differ in number and density, with length held constant, when the arrays were presented either simultaneously or successively. On the other hand, infants discriminated only between arrays that differ in number and length, with density held constant, when the arrays were presented simultaneously. Infants were, however, able to perform a successive length discrimination when the arrays were continuous rather than consisting of discrete items. These findings support the conclusion that infants are able to discriminate between large number sets by relying on absolute cues such as density (but not length) and on relative cues such as optical one-to-one correspondence.

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