On the Magnitude Scaling of Political Opinion in Survey Research

Virtually all we as social scientists claim to know about the strength of political beliefs and preferences is based on category scaling. When category and magnitude scales of opinion strength are compared-either in measuring the perceived strength of physical stimuli or in the evaluation of social-psychological stimuli-magnitude scaling is almost invariably found to be superior in terms of providing quantitative information about the intensity of people's impressions, preferences, and judgments. The aim of this workshop is to describe magnitude scaling in sufficient detail to provide political scientists with the conceptual basis for appraising the relative costs and benefits of magnitude scaling and to detail the procedural wherewithal so they can employ magnitude scaling in their research.