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Using responses from an unstructured interview with 198 French Ss, on the kind of standard of living they would like to have, and classifying the responses as to we or they, and favorable, unfavorable and factual; the frequency of groups referred to were in this order: class, family, occupation, age group, and social life (friends and colleagues). Few references were made to rural or urban groups, no references to religious groups and local communities. As income of Ss increased, the actual and desired income tended to be more equal. Analysis showed that the aim of Ss was to arrive at a harmonious continuance of social units. It is suggested that present reference group theory develop comparative rather than universal reference groups. L. P. Chall.

The concept of reference groups (RG), was coined 20 yrs ago whil studying the way individuals appraised themselves & their soc frames of reference. In the interim the concept has gained wide currency owing primarily to the careful formulation by Merton & Kitt, but certain aspects of the theory have been relatively neglected; (1) the dependence of one's self-appraisal on the RG's used as a point of comparison should receive considerably more attention. For instance while it is routine to cross-tabulate an opinion by a status variable of the R, the fact that the meaning of status is relative to some RG is usually ignored. Often several measures, such as educ & occup, with which opinions are separately related are combined in a single index, or one variable is controlled while diff's in opinion are related to the other. Handled in this orthodox way the possibly signif diff's in relation deprivation of persons having little educ & a high status occup & those with high educ & low status occup are obscured. (2) The individual as a referent in attitude formation & self-appraisal has been largely neglected compared to groups as referents. Several researchers, however, have noted the signif of interpersonal contact in attitude formation & decision-making. But, the signif of the generalized or distant referent individual who is not an intimate also merits res attention. To avoid having reference group become a 'magic term' explaining everything & anything, careful attention must be given to operational res procedures. Of note are: (a) the identification of RG's as at present in studies of the subjective meaning & identification of SC's, (b) the procedures used in the Elmira & Michigan voting studies to secure identification with various types of soc aggregates, (c) the utility of the 'guessing technique' for determining the R's extent of awareness of the reference group's norm, (d) this technique also can be used to obtain the S's awareness of differentiation in group norms, & (e) to determine the clarity with which group members perceive the norm. Another important dimension of the RG is the felt legitimacy of the group in exercising its norm. There are even simpler procedures, such as the length of group membership, which might be, but rarely are, used to indicate the extent of identification with & internationalization of group norms. C. M. Coughenour.