DMR, I should have read your previous posting more carefully. I have now had
coffee.
>Not stressful 1__ 2__ 3__ 4__ 5__ 6__ 7__ Very stressful
is a question that has an extent response format. The cognitive schema the
response format tries to invoke might be reinforced by anchoring with zero for
not at all.
To me the low end is zero rather than anti-stressful.
In some fields the above might be used as an item in a scale. As in your
example, the 16pf uses a series of items to produce bipolar scales.
Some concepts make no sense as bipolar scales. Ability, achievement, etc.
have no cognitive opposites. Even preferences and attitudes are necessarily
measured with opposites. Bem & associates made much of the fact that adaption
to gender expectations should be represented with two dimensions (analogous to
longitude to and latitude) so that it took 2 variables to adequately represent
that concept. The degre of having attributes popularly considered
characteristic of masculinity were construed as orthogonal to the degree of
having attributes popularly considered characteristic of femininity.
With regard to the original question, in my opinion, there is nothing
automatically incorrect about getting means on such variables. If the purpose
is to compare groups, it is more important to be sure to use the same ruler,
than it is to worry whether it is a rubber ruler.
Dennis Roberts wrote:
> At 01:39 PM 2/27/02 -0600, Jay Warner wrote:
>
> > > >
> > > >Not stressful 1__ 2__ 3__ 4__ 5__ 6__ 7__ Very stressful
>
> just out of curiosity ... how many consider the above to be an example of a
> bipolar scale?
>
> i don't
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