Individuality of Item Interpretation in Interchangeable Acl Scales

After responding to each adjective in a check list, subjects gave a synonym. Sets of such synonyms showed considerable diversity. Using the first and second modal synonyms, respectively, in each such set, two new scales were formed for each of five variables. In another sample, these new scales had reliabilities comparable to those for the original scales and to the intercorrelations among the scales. For each triad of scales, the patterns of correlations with other scales converged closely. Despite the individuality of interpretations, the item sampling produced parallel, practically interchangeable scales. Each subject may be considered to be responding to his personal scale which corresponds roughly to those for other subjects.