To explore the relationships among three sets of variables--social status, communication, and energy conserving behavior--405 respondents from a highly educated, upper income, largely white collar community and 333 respondents from a predominantly lower-middle and working class city were interviewed over the telephone. Questions were designed to determine subjects' (1) issue salience, or how significant they considered energy conservation; (2) energy knowledge; (3) attitudes toward energy conservation; (4) thermostat setting; and (5) conservation efforts. Responses were correlated with three independent variables: media exposure, use of public affairs content, and interpersonal and mass communication on energy conservation. Results revealed that in both cities, most sources of energy information were used relatively equally across status levels; associations among salience, knowledge, attitudes, and overt behavior were relatively weak; and interpersonal and mass communication were found to have moderate effects on energy conservation. The communities differed widely, however, in several significant relationships among variables. Higher status respondents were more likely to adopt energy conserving behavior in the upper income sample, for example, than in the lower middle income community. (Extensive tables of data are included.) (MM)