Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Scales and Scaling 341
and has been used widely for this ever since (Smith et al. 1969; Brief and
Roberson 1989; Wanous et al. 1997). It’s a really good device for capturing
people’s feelings about a wide variety of things—health care, personal safety,
consumer items (brands of beer, titles of current movies), and so on. People
are told: ‘‘Here are some faces expressing various feelings. Which face comes
closest to how you feel about
?’’ Try using this scale with names
of well-known political figures or music artists just to get a feel for how interesting
it is.
Physicians and psychologists use this scale as a prop when they ask patients
to describe pain. It’s particularly good when working with children, but it’s
effective with adults as well (Belter et al. 1988; Bieri et al. 1990; Harrison
1993).
There is some evidence that the meaning of the faces in figure 12.3 is nearly
universal (Ekman et al. 1969), but Oliver Kortendick used the faces scale in
his research on social networks in Papua New Guinea, and people did not
respond well to the task. It seems that the face farthest to the right, which
almost everyone in Europe, North America, and Latin America interprets as
‘‘unhappy’’ was interpreted in Papua New Guinea as ‘‘hostility’’ and ‘‘aggression’’—two
emotions that were simply not talked about openly in the village
where Kortendick did his work (personal communication).
And Finally
There are thousands of published scales. Whatever you’re interested in, the
chances are good that someone has developed and tested a scale to measure
it. Of course, scales are not automatically portable. A scale that measures
stress among Barbadian women may not measure stress among Ghanaian
men.
Still, it makes sense to seek out any published scales on variables you’re
studying. You may be able to adapt the scales to your needs, or you may get
ideas for building and testing an alternative scale. Just because scales are not
perfectly transportable across time and cultures doesn’t mean those scales are
useless to you. For a start on looking for scales that you can adapt, consult
Miller and Salkind (2002) and Beere (1990). For more on developing scales,
see Spector (1992), DeVellis (2003), Netemeyer et al. (2003), and Dunn-Rankin
(2004). Some classics on scaling include Torgerson (1958), Nunnally and
Bernstein (1994), and Coombs (1964).