Abandoning the language of "response shift": a plea for conceptual clarity in distinguishing scale recalibration from true changes in quality of life
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Quality of life researchers have been studying
‘‘response shift’’ for a decade now, in an effort to clarify
how best to measure QoL over time and across changing
circumstances. However, we contend that this line of
research has been impeded by conceptual confusion created
by the term ‘‘response shift’’, that lumps together sources of
measurement error (e.g., scale recalibration) with true
causes of changing QoL (e.g., hedonic adaptation). We
propose abandoning the term response shift, in favor of less
ambiguous terms, like scale recalibration and adaptation.
‘‘response shift’’ for a decade now, in an effort to clarify
how best to measure QoL over time and across changing
circumstances. However, we contend that this line of
research has been impeded by conceptual confusion created
by the term ‘‘response shift’’, that lumps together sources of
measurement error (e.g., scale recalibration) with true
causes of changing QoL (e.g., hedonic adaptation). We
propose abandoning the term response shift, in favor of less
ambiguous terms, like scale recalibration and adaptation.
Keywords: Response shift - Hedonic adaptation - Scale recalibration - Validity
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