Comparative judgments as an alternative to ratings: identifying the scale origin

Although comparative judgment methods have a number of distinct advantages over ratings, they share one common problem: On the basis of comparative judgments, it is not possible to recover the origin of item evaluations. One item may be judged more positively than another, but this result does not allow any conclusions about whether either of the items are attractive or unattractive. This article discusses the implications of this limitation for the interpretation of individual differences in comparative judgments. It also presents 3 different methods that may allow determination of the scale origin using a nested model comparison approach. An application illustrates the proposed approach as well as the benefits of determining the scale origin in understanding value judgments.