Wrong. If anything, it’s TOO precise. Attractiveness is “fuzzy”. If you asked me to rank Angelina Jolie on a 5-point scale, I’d give her a 4 without hesitation, but on a ten-point scale, I have no idea what she’d be. 7? 8? On a 5-point scale, 4 means “above average but not top-tier”. On a 10-point scale, is there any meaningful difference between a 7 and an 8? It’s like trying to decide whether a color is “maroon” or “crimson” when any sane person would just say “dark red”.
On the other hand, everyone agrees that Nancy Pelosi is a 0 on any scale :)
On the other hand, everyone agrees that Nancy Pelosi is a 0 on any scale :)
I had to look up who she is. Apart from anything else, she’s 74 years old, so not a part of this. But looking at her on Google Images, I noticed that I could tell just by looking at the picture whether it linked to a pro-Pelosi or anti-Pelosi web page. I guess that for Americans, how attractive someone thinks Nancy Pelosi is correlates rather well with political affiliation.
There’s plenty of research on reliability of rating scales—and the sweet spot seems to be a range from 7-10 choices at least according to quite a few studies designed to address this directly. An influential paper in this regard is Preston & Coleman’s (2000) “Optimal number of response categories in rating scales: reliability, validity, discriminating power, and respondent preferences.” link to PDF
Abstract:
Using a self-administered questionnaire, 149 respondents rated service elements associated with a recently visited store or restaurant on scales that differed only in the number of response categories (ranging from 2 to 11) and on a 101-point scale presented in a different format. On several indices of reliability, validity, and discriminating power, the two-point, three-point, and four-point scales performed relatively poorly, and indices were significantly higher for scales with more response categories, up to about 7. Internal consistency did not differ significantly between scales, but test-retest reliability tended to decrease for scales with more than 10 response categories. Respondent preferences were highest for the 10-point scale, closely followed by the seven-point and nine-point scales.
Or if one prefers a more analytic approach, here’s a 2012 conference proceedings paper by Kluver et al “How many bits per rating?” link to PDF
“Ratings on a 10 point scale are imprecise”
Wrong. If anything, it’s TOO precise. Attractiveness is “fuzzy”. If you asked me to rank Angelina Jolie on a 5-point scale, I’d give her a 4 without hesitation, but on a ten-point scale, I have no idea what she’d be. 7? 8? On a 5-point scale, 4 means “above average but not top-tier”. On a 10-point scale, is there any meaningful difference between a 7 and an 8? It’s like trying to decide whether a color is “maroon” or “crimson” when any sane person would just say “dark red”.
On the other hand, everyone agrees that Nancy Pelosi is a 0 on any scale :)
I had to look up who she is. Apart from anything else, she’s 74 years old, so not a part of this. But looking at her on Google Images, I noticed that I could tell just by looking at the picture whether it linked to a pro-Pelosi or anti-Pelosi web page. I guess that for Americans, how attractive someone thinks Nancy Pelosi is correlates rather well with political affiliation.
She does have good teeth for her age.
There’s plenty of research on reliability of rating scales—and the sweet spot seems to be a range from 7-10 choices at least according to quite a few studies designed to address this directly. An influential paper in this regard is Preston & Coleman’s (2000) “Optimal number of response categories in rating scales: reliability, validity, discriminating power, and respondent preferences.” link to PDF
Abstract:
Or if one prefers a more analytic approach, here’s a 2012 conference proceedings paper by Kluver et al “How many bits per rating?” link to PDF
Don’t knock it ’til you try it.