Measuring the Perceived Relation Between Jobs and Salaries Using Relative Judgment Theory

Abstract

<p>Thurstone's law of comparative judgment and a recent extension of his model, relative judgment theory were employed separately in two experiments to obtain scale values for a number of occupations. While Thurstone's theory uses only the probability of the subjects' judgments, relative judgment theory, which is based on a sequential random walk process provides further predictions concerning the latency probability function. In making judgments, a subject tends to take more time to respond when the value of the stimulus is close to a mental referent which the subject has adopted. The random walk model gives scale values in good agreement with the previous Thurstonian techniques. In addition, the fit of the data to the model for the predicted linear relationship between a function of response probability and response time was very close.</p>