Hidden and False “Preferences” on the Structured 9‐point Hedonic Scale

Abstract

An unspecified number of consumers who used a 9‐point hedonic scale were frustrated because they could not express preferences for products with the same ratings. Accordingly, consumers were required to rate samples of yogurt on a 9‐point structured hedonic scale. Consumers were able to express preference judgments because the testing was performed one‐on‐one with the experimenter. Thus, it was possible to determine the proportion of consumers who had given the same hedonic response to yogurts but still had preferences for one or other of the stimuli. Further testing, which included a pair of identical yogurts among the stimuli, allowed the proportion of preference and no preference responses elicited by identical stimuli to be determined in this context. Such data are useful as a control condition in preference testing, to assess the proportion of false preferences induced by the experimental conditions. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Consumer liking for various products is typically measured using the 9‐point structured hedonic scale. Sometimes, consumers will give the same score to two products yet prefer one to the other. Such preferences are not recorded if the consumer is isolated from the experimenter and has no means of reporting them. However, the situation is easily rectified if the experimenter interacts one‐on‐one with the consumer. Sometimes, false preferences can be obtained from a hedonic scale. This tendency can be monitored by including identical stimuli in the measurements. The present study investigated the extent of such problems so that methods could be devised to address the problem.

Hedonic scaling: A review of methods and theory

“…Nevertheless, this does not pose problem for measuring relative (ordinal) preferences among stimuli, which was its intended purpose. Second, due to its limited number of response categories, the 9-point hedonic scale offers little freedom for subjects to express the full range of their hedonic experiences (Marchisano et al, 2003;Villanueva & Da Silva, 2009;Villegas-Ruiz, Angulo, & O'Mahony, 2008). Third, because of both its small number of available categories and the general tendency of subjects to avoid using extreme categories (Hollingworth, 1910;Moskowitz, 1982;O'Mahony, 1982), the scale is highly vulnerable to ceiling effects (Schutz & Cardello, 2001;Stevens & Galanter, 1957), one of the context effects that was described above (Section 2.3.4).…”

The 9‐point hedonic scale and hedonic ranking in food science: some reappraisals and alternatives

“…They reported that ‘participants were frustrated when they liked the two samples equally, but had a preference for one, and could not indicate this on the response sheet.’ However, they did not report the proportion of participants who had made this complaint. Villegas‐Ruiz et al investigated this, using three strawberry yogurts and the same ‘words only’ scale. Of their 116 consumers, they noted that 32 (28%) gave identical responses for two of the yogurts, while one consumer gave identical responses for all three.…”

Evaluation of the Labeled Hedonic Scale under different experimental conditions

“…Consequently, the scale produces only ordinal-or, at best, interval-level data, as opposed to ratio-level data (Stevens, 1951). Second, because it is a category scale, the 9-point hedonic scale offers little freedom for consumers to express their preference among products (Marchisano et al, 2003;Villegas-Ruiz, Angulo, & O'Mahony, 2008). In addition, because there are only nine choices available and also because consumers often avoid using extreme response categories (Hollingworth, 1910;Moskowitz, 1982;O'Mahony, 1982), the scale is highly vulnerable to the ceiling effects.…”