intuitive to use ( Converse & Presser, 1986 ). It also allows for the quick assessment of attitudes and represents an
easy way to assess attitudes towards multiple groups, including the ingroup (e.g., Tausch et al., 2010 ).
While we have presented evidence in favor of the feeling thermometer, we should highlight some concerns to
take into account before deciding on whether or not to use the feeling thermometer. The researcher interested in
using the feeling thermometer to assess attitudes towards multiple outgroups should be aware of shared method
variances (see Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003 ) as using the same scale to measure attitudes
towards different groups could artificially inflate the correlation(s) found between them. While a few studies
have demonstrated that this is not a serious issue ( Alwin, 1997 ; see also Lolliot, 2013 ;Tausch et al., 2010 ), shared
method effects should nonetheless always be kept in mind when designing the questionnaire.
Another concern relates to the scaling properties of the feeling thermometer. Although 11-point feeling ther-
mometers have been shown to be more reliable than 7-point rating scales ( Alwin, 1997 ) and research has demon-
strated that reliability goes up with increasing response categories ( Alwin, 1992; Andrews, 1984 ), when
answering the 100-point feeling thermometer, many respondents rely on using a restricted subset of the feeling
thermometer, typically response categories that are multiples of 5 (i.e., 25, 30, 35, and so forth) with answers clus-
tering around the mid-point of the scale (i.e., 50; Schaeffer & Presser, 2003 ). It is therefore unsurprising that stan-
dard deviations associated with feeling thermometers are typically large. It should, however, be noted that social
scientists are more frequently distributing their surveys on the internet using online survey tools, most of which
include online feeling thermometers where the participant can use a sliding bar to indicate their feelings towards
an outgroup (their rating typically appears in a box to the right of the thermometer). Evidence from our online
data indicates that individuals do make fuller use of the whole range of response options on these online feeling
thermometers, and tend to rely less heavily on the mid-point.
Third, using single-item measures (such as a single feeling thermometer to assess attitudes towards outgroups)
does not allow the researcher to take advantage of latent variable modeling techniques. By using multiple indica-
tors for a latent variable, modeling techniques such as structural equation modeling are able to estimate and thus
partial out measurement error allowing for more accurate parameter estimation. Sometimes, however, there are
advantages to using single item measures. We will touch on these shortly.
Keeping these considerations in mind, we turn our attention to the psychometric properties of a second popu-
lar outgroup attitude measure: the general evaluation scale ( Wright et al., 1997 ).
FEELING THERMOMETER
Below is something that looks like a thermometer ( Fig. 23.1 ). We call it a ‘feeling thermometer’ because it mea-
sures your feelings towards groups. Here’s how it works. If you don’t know too much about a group, or don’t feel
particularly warm or cold toward them, then you should place them in the middle, at the 50 degree mark. If you
have a warm feeling toward a group, or feel favorably toward it, you would give it a score somewhere between 50
and 100 depending on how warm your feeling is toward the group. On the other hand, if you don’t feel very favor-
ably toward some of these groups /C0if there are some you don’t care for too much /C0then you would place them
somewhere between the 0 and 50 mark.
How do you feel towards ...
...[outgroup]?
For more abbreviated instructions, see Schmid, Hewstone, and Tausch (2013) .
General Evaluation Scale (GES)
(Wright et al., 1997 ).
FIGURE 23.1 The Feeling Thermometer.676 23. MEASURES OF INTERGROUP CONTACT
VI. SOCIOCULTURAL INTERACTION AND CONFLICT