| Summary: | The object of the thesis was to develop a field
instrument for the determination of aesthetic tastes and
preferences among various social groups. The instrument has
been developed for use in research on attitudes and preferences
involved in the purchase of homes. The instrument was
constructed as a visual attitude scale, consisting of three
house photographs graduated along a social class continuum to
represent the lower, middle, and upper scale categories; and
will be developed on the assumption that people can consistently discriminate among house photographs on the basis of
perceived social class of occupant families.
The three house photographs were derived from a rating
process in the field which used 60 respondents to rate a set
of 30 carefully selected house photographs among three social
class categories. The house photographs associated most with
each of the three categories were selected to represent each
social stratum in the visual attitude scale. Use of the
visual attitude scale in conjunction with the Semantic
Differential and open-end questions was proposed as a means
to determine differences in aesthetic tastes and preferences
and, also, other attitudes involved in the decision making
process to buy a home. The actual utility and validity of
the field instrument cannot be established here, but must be the object of further research. The study did reveal,
however, a high degree of consistency of ratings by respondents
from different social class backgrounds and, therefore,
provided face validation for the assumptions underlying the
construction of the field instrument. === Business, Sauder School of === Graduate
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