magnitude scaling of attitudes
a procedure for measuring attitudes and other constructs by representing them as physical stimuli. Participants indicate their attitudes by regulating some perceptual property of a stimulus, such as the brightness of a light, the length of a line, or the pitch of a tone. For example, they might indicate their evaluation of an object by turning a brightness dial on a light, with no light representing an extremely negative attitude and maximum brightness representing an extremely positive attitude. This procedure usually involves reporting the attitude on two different perceptual properties and then validating the measurement procedure by confirming that the mathematical relationship between these two modalities is close to established numerical values for the specific modalities. [primarily developed by U.S. political scientist Milton G. Lodge (1936– )]