Frequency vs. intensity: Framing effects on patients' use of verbal rating scale anchors

The results give no clear suggestion if unframed or framed terms should be preferred as verbal anchors in self-report instruments. Unframed terms seem to have a slight advantage over framed terms as they are less influenced by the patient's background. However, patients are able to distinguish more adjacent terms if presented framed in a behavioral or perceptual context they are familiar with. Frequency terms showed a higher intraindividual stability of mental representations while both groups of terms exhibited low interindividual congruency. No more than four different verbal anchors could be used safely together in rating scales, as patients with a depressive disorder would not be able to reasonably differentiate more than these.