A rationale for the measurement of traits in individuals

Hypotheses presented in a previous paper conceive of an individual's position on an attitude scale as represented by a mean position (status score) and a sigma (dispersion score). The testing of these hypotheses requires a determination of these two scores for each individual. A rationale is presented here for the determination of these two scores for an individual from his forced choice responses to pairs of items of nearly equal scale value.This study was made possible by the Bureau of Psychological Services, Institute for Human Adjustment, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, University of Michigan.