Label or Position : Which Has the Greater Impact on Subjects’ Responses to a Rating Scale?

A study was conducted with 175 college students to determine whether different overall satisfaction and interest rating scales would produce different results. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group answered questions with the following descriptors for the rating scale: “Completely Dissatisfied,” “Very Dissatisfied,” “Dissatisfied,” “Neither Satisfied Nor Dissatisfied,” “Satisfied,” “Very Satisfied,” and “Completely Satisfied.” (For the interest question, the rating scale was labeled: “Completely Disinterested,” “Very Disinterested,” “Disinterested,” “Neither Interested Nor Disinterested,” “Interested,” “Very Interested,” and “Completely Interested.”). The second group was given the questions with a slightly different rating scale. This rating scale was labeled as: “Completely Dissatisfied,” “Dissatisfied,” “Somewhat Dissatisfied,” “Neither Satisfied Nor Dissatisfied,” “Somewhat Satisfied,” “Satisfied,” and “Completely Satisfied.” (a similar scale was employed for the interest related question). Results showed that the adjective label was a key determinant of subjects' responses. That is, when respondents showed a strong preference for rating a stimulus with a particular descriptor (e.g., “satisfied”), changing the scale did have a significant effect on the distribution of responses