Over the last decade, the use of rating scales has grown in popularity
in various fields, including customer online reviews and energy labels.
Rating scales convey important information on attributes of products or
services that consumers evaluate in their purchase decisions. By
applying multidimensional scaling, this paper reveals that the meaning
of the levels of a rating scale can be altered by manipulating the
labeling of the rating scale levels. The study reveals that consumers
perceive product attributes as being more similar if the labels share
similar or identical linguistic or visual characteristics. In addition,
two choice-based conjoint studies examine whether the way consumers make
their choices among products can be influenced by changing the labeling
of rating scale levels. The results show that a manipulation of the
meaning of rating scale levels diminishes both the importance of the
rating scale information and consumers' willingness to pay a premium for
a rating upgrade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]