This study investigated the roles of both belief similarity and dialect style on white subjects' attitudes and nonverbal behaviors toward black or white people in a face to face interaction. The experimental design consisted of six cells defined by two levels of belief similarity crossed by three levels of the race and dialect manipulations (white confederates speaking white English, and black confederates speaking black English). Eighty-eight white undergraduate women recruited from a state college in Connecticut were selected as subjects for the study. The experiment consisted of three parts: filling out an attitude questionnaire which included the 7 items used for the belief manipulation task, an irrelevant intervening task, and the belief similarity manipulation. Findings indicate that dialect style is one important variable in interracial perception. (Author/AM)