48 Ss were presented with information about 64 pairs of individuals. One member of each pair possessed an extremely desirable or undesirable trait while the other member of the pair possessed this trait plus an additional trait of like but lesser polarity. For a given pair, an S's preference for one member of the pair over the other seemed to be a function of whether he perceived the additional trait as a desirable personality trait, an undesirable personality trait, or a trait that was neither desirable nor undesirable.
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