Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

316 Chapter 11
In each of the following pairs of colors, please circle the one you like best:
RED GREEN
RED YELLOW
RED BLUE
RED BROWN
GREEN YELLOW
GREEN BLUE
GREEN BROWN
YELLOW BLUE
YELLOW BROWN
BLUE BROWN
Figure 11.2. A paired comparison test.
circled. If you are studying illnesses and cancer is on the list, and the question
is ‘‘which of these pairs of illnesses is more life threatening,’’ you expect to
find it circled each time it is paired with another illness—except, perhaps,
when it is paired with AIDS. Since this is so predictable, it’s not very interesting.
It gets really interesting when you have illnesses like diabetes and high
blood pressure in your list and you compare the average rank ordering among
various ethnic groups.
The paired comparison technique has a lot going for it. People make one
judgment at a time, so it’s much easier on them than asking them to rank order
a list of items by staring at all the items at once. Also, you can use paired
comparisons with nonliterate informants by reading the list of pairs to them,
one at a time, and recording their answers.
Like triad tests, paired comparisons can only be used with a relatively short
list of items in a domain. With 20 items, for example, informants have to make
190 judgments.
Rankings and Ratings
Rank ordering produces interval-level data, though not all behaviors or
concepts are easy to rank. Hammel (1962) asked people in a Peruvian village
to rank order the people they knew in terms of prestige. By comparing the
lists from different informants, Hammel was able to determine that the men
he tested all had a similar view of the social hierarchy. Occupations can easily
be rank ordered on the basis of prestige, or lucrativeness.
Or even accessibility. The instructions to respondents would be ‘‘Here is a