Why do we rate things on scales of 1 to 5?

[Brutha]

Looking at the way my winamp lets me rate my music it gives me the option from one to five.
Youtube has also a one to five rating scale.

What advantage does a one to five scale have over a one to ten scale?

[Adam]

It is all in simplicity. One to ten allows us to rate things that we have thought about for a while, and yet, most people use 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, only using the even numbers when they are absolutely certain...

[JohnnyJimJams]

And because 1-5 has a middle value. 3

1 = Crap (certain)
2 = Slightly crap (uncertain)
3 = Neutral (Unrated, no opinion)
4 = Slightly cool (uncertain)
5 = cool (certain)

It makes sense to my head

1-10 has 2 middle values. 5,6

[RT Wolf]

Keep in mind, more choice is not necessarily better. People get turned off by too much choice.

Also, we probably do it cause that's how many fingers there are on a hand (or four fingers and a thumb).

[tobyhede]

It's actually from something called the Likert Scale.

A Likert scale (pronounced 'lick-ert') is a type of psychometric response scale often used in questionnaires, and is the most widely used scale in survey research. When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify their level of agreement to a statement. The scale is named after Rensis Likert, who published a report describing its use (Likert, 1932).

A typical test item in a Likert scale is a statement. The respondent is asked to indicate his or her degree of agreement with the statement or any kind of subjective or objective evaluation of the statement. Traditionally a five-point scale is used, however many psychometricians advocate using a seven or nine point scale. S. S. Stevens formulated an alternative technology for replacing numeric scales with cross modal matching. such as using the brightness of a light to scale the loudness of a tone. This implicitily uses a continuum or infinite response set for the scale.

The use of 5-point scales has entered common usage, but if you are designing a survey or questionnaire there are very good reasons for using it.

[andrew]

Originally Posted by tobyhede

It's actually from something called the Likert Scale.



The use of 5-point scales has entered common usage, but if you are designing a survey or questionnaire there are very good reasons for using it.

Nice, thanks for the heads up! People here know so much, I love it.

[SamBeaven]

Also, there are five fingers on a human hand. So it's a number most of us are reasonably comfortable with.

[Nicketas]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Looking at the way my winamp lets me rate my music it gives me the option from one to five.
Youtube has also a one to five rating scale.

What advantage does a one to five scale have over a one to ten scale?

Convenience and a tipping point. One person started it, then it spread...

[Brutha]

Originally Posted by Nicketas

Convenience and a tipping point. One person started it, then it spread...

Then the question is:
When we have to rate something ourself, should we use a 1-5 scale, a 1-9 scale, a 1-10 scale or maybe a 1-20 scale?

Which arguments are there for one over another?

The Wikipedia article says that 1-5 sclaes are called Likart scale. But it doesn't realy say why you should use it.

[Jeff Lilly]

My wife, who studied cognitive science at MIT, says that studies have shown that people are best able to give consistent responses when they're given a choice of 1-7. 1-7 allows people to give an answer thusly:

1: As bad as possible
2: Pretty bad, but not as bad as it can get
3: Slightly bad
4: Medium
5: Pretty good
6: Quite good, but not as good as it can get
7: As good as it can get

I've had good results with this scale myself.

If you give only 5 choices, you can't distinguish "slightly bad" from "quite bad but not as bad as it can get". So it's really not enough choices. On the other hand, if you have 10 choices, in most cases you can't qualitatively distinguish between 10 individual states. For example, if you're trying to rate your mood on a scale of 1-10, what is the qualitative difference between feeling "2" and feeling "3"? It's too fine a distinction. But the difference between "2" and "3" on a scale of 7 (see above) is easier to get ahold of.

[pi11]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Looking at the way my winamp lets me rate my music it gives me the option from one to five.
Youtube has also a one to five rating scale.

What advantage does a one to five scale have over a one to ten scale?

As many have pointed out it is because of the 5 digits on our hands. Similarly, the reason we use base 10 numbers for our daily math is because we have 10 digits among both hands.

With the exception of us computer scientists who like base-2 math. We see the world in binary.

[RT Wolf]

^ There's 10 kinds of people in the world...

I is also a comp guy.

[pi11]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

^ There's 10 kinds of people in the world...

I is also a comp guy.

And a fellow Torontonian too! Hello!

[Michael Chui]

Paradox of Choice. Too little is too constrained; too much is too uncertain.

On a rating scale, you want an odd number, like Johnny says, so that you can have a middle number for people who don't think it's bad, but don't think it's good either.

You don't want a large number; ten is too large of a range. You don't want to a small number; three is too short. 5-7 is best, and 5 fits better visually. Most systems will average ratings into half-values, too.