Scale Imposition as Quantitative Alchemy: Studies on the Transitivity of Neuroticism Ratings. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Morris, Stefanie Dorough; Grice, James W.; Cox, Ryan A.
• Is Part Of: Basic and applied social psychology. Volume 39:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 18
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: Social psychology -- Periodicals; 302.05
• DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2016.1256288
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0197-3533

Abstract

ABSTRACT: It is common practice in psychology to devise "measurement" procedures by imposing rating scales (e.g., Likert items) onto phenomena and treating the values they produce as quantities. The validity of these procedures goes untested. Validity checks are instead performed on sets of these measurement procedures (i.e., multi-item scales). We present results from three studies suggesting that people cannot be assumed to preserve transitivity when comparing themselves and others on NEO Neuroticism-domain trait items. As transitivity is one of the fundamental axioms of quantitative measurement, these studies challenge the validity of Neuroticism scales at the level of individual scale items.