Blog Post 2: Attitude Scales
The purpose of this week’s blog post is to discuss and critique two different attitude measuring scales for my Persuasion course. Since attitudes cannot be directly measured, they must be measured using indirect explicit measures; this includes self-report scales. Out of the many self-report scales, the two I’m going to analyze for this assignment are Likert scales and Visually Oriented scales. Likert scales are very popular to use for measuring people’s attitude for a variety of ways because of how applicable they are to different questions or statements. These types of scales will give the person being measured five options ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” to choose from to properly display how they feel in relation to the question. Being easy to put together and for the test or survey taker to understand, the Likert scale system is used for professional attitude measurements for government, business marketing surveys, the medical field and in other industries. The other scale being analyzed is the Visually Oriented scale, which are self-report scales that provide picture representations (usually of facial expressions) to give the participant a scale in which they can better relate to.
The benefit in utilizing these scales within studies is that the researcher can grasp how a participant feels in a more realistic and understandable way. If the researcher’s survey only provides questions or statements without a scale system, then they are relying on the participants to respond in detail so that it is possible to determine attitudes. Without Likert, Likert-type, or visually oriented scales this would be nearly impossible. As addressed in the opening paragraph, Likert scales are popular and beneficial to use for a variety of industries looking to survey their participants. One example would be a company using the scale to measure attitudes on a new product, where a question could be asked of how much the customer enjoyed a new energy bar. Then the survey would provide a scale that includes the options strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree.
Visually oriented scales are very beneficial in doctor’s offices and hospitals, especially with young children. They are a great way to give someone a visual image to relate to and can give them a better idea of where they fit along a scale. For example, in a pediatrician’s office a child can often be nervous or intimidated and feel unsure of how they feel. A scale of images of facial expressions can range from a happy face to a sad face to give the child a better understanding of where they belong. A downside to both of these types of scales, and self-reports in general, is that the response a person will give is relative to that person. One person’s perception of how bad they feel might not match with another’s, so a doctor using the visually oriented scale has to take this into account on measuring people’s pain or sickness levels. The same criticism is also the reason Likert scale results have to be critiqued – people’s perception of their attitudes may be different from others.
Many factors can contribute to how people will respond when using attitude scales like these two types. Elaboration Likelihood Model is a theory that describes that there are two different routes of processing messages: central and peripheral. Depending on how involved participants are in taking a survey using these scales, their answers may change. If they are processing the information in the questions centrally, then they would be highly involved and paying attention to how they feel more closely. Otherwise, they are most likely processing the information peripherally and may be persuaded or influenced by some other factor to answer in a way that would misrepresent their true attitudes. For example, say someone was asked to use a visually oriented scale to determine how they feel by a physician they’ve never met before. The patient could become insecure in answering truthfully because of worry that the relevant other, in this case the doctor, thinks they being dramatic and a hypochondriac. Thus, the subjective norm would influence that patient to answer with a semi-happy face rather than a sad face.
This blog post has helped me gain a better understanding of the theories of persuasion we have learned so far. I had previously learned about the different attitude scales and measuring attitudes in my Communications Research class last semester, but it was helpful to analyze this information in relation to how a person can be persuaded to answer while using these scales, and has encouraged me to critically think the next time I answer a survey.
References
Gass, R. H., & Seiter, J. S. (2014). Persuasion: Social Influence and Compliance Gaining (5th ed.). Pearson.
