A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that most persons will act differently as they process information and form impressions about another person when that person is familiar than when the other person is unfamiliar to them. The subjects were 79 undergraduate students enrolled in the basic communication course of a midwestern university during the summer session. In a previous study, two ethnic groups (English and German) had been identified as familiar and two groups (Walloons and Kashubs) had been identified as unfamiliar. A case study was devised whereby the ethnic target was presented as the subject of an interview. Three conditions were developed: a familiar ethnic identification, an unfamiliar ethnic identification, and no ethnic identification. Identical interviews were associated with the familiar, unfamiliar, and control targets. Three additional instruments were developed to measure hypotheses: an item selection task, a question task, and a personal impression task. Although results show that there is a difference in the amount of information generated from an ethnic target, it is uncertain how the subjects in the unfamiliar treatment condition actually regarded the unfamiliar target. (DF)