This study sought to test several hypotheses about race and social-class differences in beliefs, values, and social norms related to jobs and job-seeking behavior. A two to four hour interview was conducted by specially trained black and white male interviewers, who interviewed working-class and unemployed men of their own race. All subjects were paid volunteers, recruited from business or social service agencies in the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area. The multi-trait, multimethod validation strategy was employed to evaluate two methods of measuring: (1) the valence (evaluation) of job and job-seeking outcomes and behaviors (previously elicited from similar samples), and (2) the perceived probability of obtaining five direct outcomes of each of five job-seeking behaviors. It was expected that, because of discrimination and lack of work-relevant skills, the black samples (especially the black hardcore unemployed) would see work and the job-seeking environment as essentially unpredictable situations, where effort is not related to reward. This effect was predicted to hold for the white hardcore as well, but to a lesser degree. The white working class was expected to see work and job seeking as highly predictable environments, where effort is strongly related to reward. (Author/JM)