The composite scores registered the proportion of patient (or risk seeking)
responses. For example, respondents might have been asked whether they
prefer $3,400 this month or $3,800 next month, whether they would prefer a
shorter massage in two weeks or a longer one in November and how much they
would pay for overnight shipping of a book. Respondents who preferred the $3800,
the longer later massage and who were willing to pay less than the median person
for express shipping would be coded as “patient” on all three items and would
receive a score of 1. If they were patient on two of the three items, they would
receive a score of 0.66, and so on. Thus, the indices are scores ranging from 0 to
1, in coarse or fine increments depending on how many questions the respondent
answered.12