Summated rating scales to measure attitudes (and other human characteristics) commonly consist of numerous items whose scores are summed to yield a total score. A central assumption underlying the use of this technique is that the items in the scale reflect a common construct. If this assumption is not met, the scoring procedure produces largely meaningless, uninterpretable data. Although this important psychometric principle has been known for a long time, numerous studies in the research literature demonstrate a neglect of this principle. Some studies make no attempt at all to conceptualise the construct to be measured; others conceptualise the construct but then ignore the possibility that it may be multi‐dimensional; still others actually contain evidence which indicates that the construct is multi‐dimensional and then proceed to ignore that evidence. A possible contributor to the confusion is the widespread misunderstanding about the related yet distinct concepts of internal consistency and uni‐dimen...
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