Semantic Differential Scale

A semantic differential scale is an efficient method of measuring various dimensions of meaning underlying responses toward an object. This procedure involves presenting individuals with opposing adjective pairs and asking them to locate the object on a rating scale anchored by the opposing adjectives. Semantic differential scales can be used to capture three broad dimensions of meaning underlying reactions to an object: evaluation, potency, and activity. Evaluation represents the good-bad continuum with respect to an object, potency reflects the strong-weak continuum, and activity represents the active-passive continuum. Although the method can be used to assess all three of these dimensions, in practice many researchers choose to measure only the evaluation dimension. When the scale consists only of evaluation items, it can be conceptualized as a measure of attitudes. Indeed, semantic differentials are among the most widely used methods of attitude measurement in the social sciences.

A semantic differential scale usually consists of 4 to 10 items (i.e., adjective pairs). Each descriptive item contains two adjectives, opposite in meaning, on either end of a continuous scale that typically has seven levels of response. Participants are asked to identify where on the scale they feel the object fits in relation to the two adjectives. For example, the object may be DOG, and items might include good-bad and valuable-worthless. Participants then respond to each item by indicating where on the continuum they would place the object in terms of direction and intensity, with a neutral response being in the middle of the scale.

When scoring a semantic differential scale assessing evaluation, responses are coded from 1 to 7 or from–3 to +3, with higher numbers reflecting more positive evaluations. Responses to individual items are then summed or averaged to provide an overall score. Scoring is similar for scales assessing potency and activity.

When creating a semantic differential scale, researchers should ensure that appropriate adjective pairs have been selected to assess the dimensions of interest. Published factor analyses of word meanings can help determine which dimensions adjective pairs best reflect. In addition, researchers need to consider the appropriateness of word pairs for the specific object of interest. Some adjective pairs are quite general and are probably appropriate for virtually any object. For example, good-bad could probably be meaningfully applied to virtually any physical object, person, social group, or abstract idea. Other adjective pairs may be somewhat more specific and thus perhaps less readily applied to some objects than others. For instance, beautiful-ugly could quite sensibly be applied to a person but less meaningfully applied to an object such as magnetic resonance imaging.