This thesis looks at the relationship between public attitudes to welfare and social security legislation and policy. In order to understand this relationship fully it is necessary to consider the content of public opinion, what factors affect people’s attitudes, the susceptibility of these attitudes to change and whether social security legislation, particularly the recent developments in this legislation, reflects the views of the public. The relationship between experience of unemployment and attitudes was a major concern. The content of public attitudes and legislation is assessed by examining the extent to which the welfare principles identified in the three models of welfare described by Titmuss, the residual, the institutionalised redistributive model and the industrial achievement performance model, are emphasised. The research was exploratory in nature. The views of the general public were solicited through interviews which were carried out with men resident in four areas specifically chosen to ensure a broad spectrum of the public were represented. Those interviewed were not randomly selected, thus they cannot be claimed to be statistically representative. A small postal survey of a random sample of men resident in two towns was also carried out but this formed a very minor part of the study. The nature of the sample does not allow firm conclusions about the content of public attitudes and their susceptibility to change to be reached but it does allow some exisiting assumptions about the nature of public attitudes to be questioned.