Measuring Social Attitudes

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that summated ratings or Likert scales are one methodology used by academics, students, politicians and marketing researchers to determine the attitude of individuals towards a particular issue. The author relates that the use of summated ratings is a survey method that presents a set of attitude statements which the subject must express agreement or disagreement on a continuous scale of five to nine points. The author believes that summated ratings can be used to measure emotional attitudes regarding issues particular to criminal justice, such as punishment and enforcement of crime.

From the Paper:

"The relevance of the quantification of attitude may be found in the idea that the psychological "stimulus" designed to provoke an attitude does not necessarily have to be physical. This is reflected in the work of the psychologist Thurstone, who is considered the father of attitude measurement. He addressed the issue of how favorable an individual is with regard to a given issue in his own work. He developed an attitude continuum to determine the position of measuring favorable and unfavorable attitudes on issues. This was refined in 1932, by his protege Likert, the most famous father of the attitudinal scale."

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