Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T10:23:26.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Joint-Space Analysis of “pick-any” Data: Analysis of Choices from an Unconstrained Set of Alternatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Joel H. Levine
Joel H. Levine*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Joel H. Levine, Math/Social Science Program, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. 03755.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Social and naturally occurring choice phenomena are often of the “pick-any” type in which the number of choices made by a subject as well as the set of alternatives from which they are chosen is unconstrained. These data present a special analytical problem because the meaning of non-choice among pick-any choice data is always ambiguous: A non-chosen alternative may be either unacceptable, or acceptable but not considered, or acceptable and considered but not chosen. A model and scaling method for these data are introduced, allowing for this ambiguity of non-choice. Subjects are represented as points whose coordinates are proportional to the centroids of the points representing their choices. Alternatives are represented at points whose coordinates are proportional to the centroids of the points representing subjects who have chosen them. This centroid scaling technique estimates multidimensional joint spaces from the pick-any data.

Keywords

multidimensional scalingnon-metric scalingchoice
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 85 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 The Psychometric Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am indebted to John Baird, Clyde Coombs, David Eames, John Hunter, Michael J. Levine, Elliot Noma, Robert Z. Norman, William S. Roy, Joseph Schwartz, Daniel Velleman, the editor, and anonymous reviewers for ideas and suggestions that have been incorporated into this work. Conferences organized by Hans J. Hummel for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (1977) and by Samuel Leinhardt for the National Science Foundation (1975) were instrumental in the development of this work.

References

Reference Note

Coombs, C. H.Personal communication, August, 1976.Google Scholar
Mosteller, F. A theory of scalogram analysis, using noncumulative types of items: A new approach to Thurstone's method of scaling attitudes (Rep. No. 9), 1949, Cambridge, Mass: Lab. of Social Relations, Harvard University.Google Scholar

References

Carroll, J. D. Individual differences and multidimensional scalling. In Shepard, R. N., Romney, A. K. & Nerlove, S. B.(Eds.), Multidimensional scaling (Vol. I), 1972, New York: Seminar Press, Inc..Google Scholar
Coombs, C. H. The theory and method of social measurement. In Festinger, L. & Katz, D.(Eds.), Research methods in the behavioral sciences. New York: Dryden Press. 1953, 471–535.Google Scholar
Coombs, C. H. A theory of data, 1964, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Coombs, C. H. & Smith, J. E. K. On the detection of structure in attitudes and developmental processes. Psychological Review, 1973, 80, 337–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, B. F. Jr. Attitude measurement. In Lindzey, G.(Eds.), Handbook of social psychology, 1954, Cambridge, Mass.: Addison Wesley.Google Scholar
Levine, J. H. & Roy, W. S. A study of interlocking directorates. In Leinhardt, S.(Eds.), Symposium on social networks, 1976, New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lingoes, J. C. A general survey of the Guttman-Lingoes nonmetric program series. In Shepard, R. N., Romney, A. K. & Nerlove, S. B.(Eds.), Multidimensional scaling (Vol. I, 1972, New York: Seminar Press, Inc..Google Scholar
March, J. G. & Simon, H. A. Cognitive limits on rationality, 1958, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Torgerson, W. S. Theory and methods of scaling, 1958, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
White, H. C., Boorman, S. A. & Breiger, R. U.Social structure from multiple networks: I. Block-models of roles and positions. American Journal of Sociology, 1976, 730-780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar