A multivariate regression model incorporating both objective economic opportunity and objective quality-of-life measures is able to explain 6570 of the variation in young adult in-migration rates for thirty Venezuelan cities in 1971. The objective variables mean annual temperature, level of secondary education, and objective income at the destination are largely responsible for this explanation. A second model, incorporating variables which measure perceived economic opportunity and perceived quality-of-life at the urban destination is then formulated. This perceptual model raises the level of explanation to 83%. Moreover, analysis of the regression coefficients for the objective variables in both models Indicates that attractive factors are perceived correctly by migrants while repulsive factors are not.

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Empirical studies of inter-urban and interregional migration have most often assumed that objective place or personal characteristics affect the migration decision directly. Such studies tend to disregard the roles of awareness of opportunities at potential destinations, and of the preferences for these destinations which are a function of this awareness. In this study, the presence of six different types of direct and indirect contact with three potential destinations (large cities in Venezuela) is shown to be related to a potential migrant's preferences for these destinations. These results--based on a sample of 260 high school seniors at six different sites in Venezuela in 1974--underline the importance of awareness space and of urban residential preferences as intervening variables in the migration process in a developing country.

A modification of the Osgood-Tannenbaum sociopsychological model of belief change is applied to University of Cincinnati student perceptions of Southwest Ohio and of the Kentucky Bluegrass. Students scale their beliefs about the two regions; after a week, they are given a factual presentation associating the two regions and asked to again scale their beliefs. The variable which proves most important in the resultant belief changes for the Kentucky Bluegrass is the separation of the two regions on a student's initial belief scale, suggesting the willingness of the students to believe the new information. Further analysis indicates that although objective differences in the regions affect initial beliefs, they play a negligible role in the degree to which students change their beliefs. A "halo effect" is also discovered, in which beliefs not mentioned in the presentation change in predictable directions. The empirical results appear encouraging to recent efforts which have been made to change popular impressions about places.