Do Numeric Values Influence Subjects’ Responses to Rating Scales?

A study was conducted with a random sample of 139 college students to determine whether using different numbering schemes for rating scales would achieve different results. Two different rating scales, one numbered from 4 to -4 and another numbered from 9 to 1, were employed. The results indicated that the 4 to -4 scales produced more positive evaluations than did the 9 to 1 scales. It appears that a negative number next to the negative-evaluation descriptor, e.g., “awful,” makes the descriptor seem much more negative than when the lowest number on the scale is a 1. This causes a difference in the means and frequency distributions of scales numbered 4 to -4 as compared with using the same scales with numbers ranging from 9 to 1