ABSTRACT
T he placement of value on objects, actions, events, and individuals is a per-sistent and continuous human endeavor. We express these values in oureveryday discourse when we say things like, “That movie was wonderful!” Such expressions communicate the contents of our mental world through categorical terms that relate relative magnitudes along implicit dimensions. The movie being referenced above is clearly valued more highly than movies assigned expressions such as “awful,” “cheesy,” or even “interesting” or “exciting.” Indeed, it is because our expressions of value typically imply ordered sets of categories that psychologists have found it natural to collect data using category rating scales, which formalize these gradations of value and serve as a gateway into the mental life of the informant.
