Suggesting concrete operational procedures to stimulate discussion re: Objective B of the S-120 Regional Project (rural development), this paper focuses on key conceptual problems raised in a previous paper. The problem of cognitions or subjective worlds of actors is addressed in terms of Blumer's six features of public opinion; then, the delineation of relevant publics in developmental decision making is addressed. Perceptions of development as definition of the situation is the heading given to a section dealing with the basic question of how to link the process of development to the subjective worlds of pertinent actors (i.e., it is how actors define their situations, not how social scientists define them, that produces meaningful behavior). Three central cognitive dimensions or definitions of the situation are suggested: factual beliefs; evaluations; and relevances. The suggested operational proposals include: sample selection (development issues or events selected by each principle investigator and based upon "researchability"; selection of key individual actors based upon data available from the ranking scheme in the contact matrices; key organizations selected via a similar fashion); and actors' perceptions (the nature of the developmental issue or event itself; the problem of identifying publics; the actual decision making process; and assessments of the outcome of this decision process). (JC)