Attitude scaling is the setting up of a scale to provide a basis for assigning a numerical value to a person’s attitude and for comparing him or her with other people.
This is possible when an attitude is conceptualised as measurable on a single scale. Such a scale may be nominal, ordinal or interval, in theory, although most are constructed and used as though they were interval scales (even when they are ordinal).
There are several established procedures for attitude scaling including the Thurstone, Likert, and Guttman methods.
Attitude scales may be unidimensional although some attitude questionnaires measure more than one dimension, with scores on the different individual questions all allocated to one or other dimension. The extroversion and neuroticism scales of the Eysenck Personality Inventory, the Tactics and Views dimensions of the Machiavellianism scale, and the subscales of the Telic Dominance Scale are all examples.