SOCIAL COST, BELIEF INCONGRUENCE, AND RACE-- EXPERIMENTS IN CHOICE BEHAVIOR.

Seven studies investigated the relative importance of social cost, belief incongruence, and race in the preference for "types" of people or stooges. The Ss in five studies completed a "Person Preference Test." The test required the Ss to state their preference for eight person types, composed of all possible variations of the three variables across six relationships varying in intimacy. The Ss ranked in order of preference the eight person types, and one study asked the Ss to indicate preference for each of all possible pairs. The results showed that complete congruency (same beliefs, race, and low social costs) is the most important factor. Race is particularly important for the most intimate relationship. Excluding a consideration of complete congruence, the relative importance of the variables were the following: social cost, belief incongruence, and race. Two laboratory studies tended to support the relative importance of social cost, in the preference for stooges differing in social cost, belief incongruence, and race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]