Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Scales and Scaling 339
The Cantril Ladder of Life
Some Other Scales
There are many interesting variations in the construction of scales. Hadley
Cantril (1965) devised a 10-rung ladder of life, shown in figure 12.2. People
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Figure 12.2. The ladder of life.
SOURCE: H. Cantril, ‘‘The Ladder of Life,’’ The Pattern of Human Concerns. Copyright 1965 by Rutgers,
The State University. Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.
are asked to list their concerns in life (financial success, healthy children, freedom
from war, and so on). Then they are shown the ladder and are told that
the bottom rung represents the worst-possible situation, while the top rung
represents the best. For each of their concerns they are asked to point out
where they are on the ladder right now, where they were 5 years ago, and
where they think they’ll be 5 years from now.
Note that the ladder of life is a self-anchoring scale. Respondents are asked
to explain, in their own terms, what the top and bottom rungs of the ladder
mean to them.
The ladder of life is a useful prop for interviewing nonliterate or semiliterate
people. Hansen and McSpadden (1993), for example, used the technique