Ethnic origin, belief, and personality information in interpersonal attraction.

To test the effects on interpersonal attraction of 3 categories of information, 78 English-speaking undergraduates made liking and social distance ratings about a derived target. The person rated was either English or French Canadian, pro- or anti-capital-punishment and the harsh treatment of criminals, and high or low on the Cognitive Structure and Order scales of the Personality Research Form. Results show that the judges were all anti-capital-punishment and low on the personality traits. Belief and belief-congruence were the primary determinants of attraction. The 3 categories of information interacted on 2 measures. French Canadians were rated more favorably than English-Canadians when similar to the judge in belief or personality but less favorably when similar in neither belief nor personality. (French summary) (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)