ABSTRACT
The subject of consumer taste has proved an elusive one for social scientists and businessmen alike. But while the latter energetically pursue the public on a day-to-day basis with ever new baubles and gadgets, the social sciences have for the most part confined their interest to a broad and distant view and only rarely descended to research on the specific processes of taste formation. For students of public opinion the particular process of familiarization has special relevance in view of their concern with the new, if not in products then certainly in ideas. Too often in the past, furthermore, explanations for public acceptance or rejection of the new have wandered without restraint between such commonplaces as “Repetition equals reputation,” and “Familiarity breeds contempt,” or “It's the novelty that attracts people,” and “It's too new for the public.”
