Abstract: | A statisticthe similarity coefficientis developedfor assessing the property that a set of scale items measuresone and only one construct. This statistic is rooted in an explicitmeasurement model and is flexible enough to be used in exploratoryscale analyses, even in small samples. Methods for analyzingsimilarity coefficients are described and illustrated in analysesof Stimson's (1991) policy mood data and Markus' (1990) popularindividualism items. The Appendix discusses the statisticalproperties of similarity coefficients. |