Citation

Berglund B, Berglund U, Jonsson E, Lindvall T. Environ. Psychol. Nonverbal. Behav. 1977; 2(2): 83-92.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1977, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF01145824

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A recurrent problem in sociological annoyance surveys is to scale the environmental variables quantitatively as they are perceived. Data from two surveys on malodors and noise are discussed within a framework of scaling theory. A Thurstonian scaling technique was applied to the category annoyance data. In the investigation of malodors a rather stable picture of the results of the annoyance reports was obtained independently of the assumptions made in data treatment. On the other hand, the results of the noise investigation indicate that paired comparisons may furnish a better procedure than verbal category scaling for data collection in surveys. Scales of annoyance from different populations will give different units of measurement, and annoyance scales cannot be compared adequately unless the scales are calibrated. A possible calibration procedure is to introduce a defined psychological unit of measurement into the data.

Language: en