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The research reported here is an exploration of the effects of Culture Assimilator Training. A procedure emphasizing behavior with respect to hardcore unemployed blacks was utilized for the training. White male university students were randomly assigned to a trained or untrained group. After the training, subjects were placed in a situation requiring that they work with a black confederate of the experimenters on a complex performance task. Each black confederate worked with both trained and untrained subjects. The confederates did not know who were the trained subjects. They rated the subjects on a number of dimensions, thus providing us with indices of the effectiveness of the trained and untrained subjects in interpersonal relationships while doing the task. A multi-method assessment of the dependent variables shows that the assimilator improves the attributions that the white subjects make concerning the causes of the behavior of blacks, reduces the perceived conflict between blacks and whites, and makes whites more tolerant of blacks who are dressed in a mod or hip fashion. On the other hand, there is no evidence of favorable change in the behavior of the whites. The optimal combination of assimilator training with other forms of training is discussed. (Author/JM)

This study focused on two methodological issues by testing for discriminant validity in a multitrait-multimethod matrix which contrasted the set of estimates obtained from two methods and the "regression weights" derived from each subject's estimates from the second method. In order to change the conceptions of social behavior held by persons from different cultural backgrounds, it is necessary to be able to measure the similarity of such conceptions, or attributions. A method for quantifying attributions requires that values be assigned to five weights incorporated in an equation. This raises the question of how to obtain good estimates of these weights. A direct method is to simply ask subjects to estimate the weight of each predictor in the equations. A second method of measurement is to have the subject estimate the perceived relationship among all possible pairs of variables in each equation. This is tantamount to asking the subjects to estimate directly the correlation coefficient between all pairs of variables in the equation. The question as to whether the subjective correlations estimate fails to mirror processes actually used by the subjects can only be answered empirically. If the two methods produce different types of estimates, they may not yield similar interpretations of the subject's conceptions. (Author/JM)