Psychometric Properties of King's Rodent Emotionality Rating Scale

Abstract

King's (1958) Rodent Emotionality Rating Scale has been used extensively as a measure of the effects of such experimental procedures as septal lesions. It has also been suggested that the King scale is appropriate for a variety of applications in laboratory activities for introductory physiological psychology and for studies with normal animals. Given this extent of potential use, a series of studies were undertaken to investigate the psychometric properties of this scale. The psychometric properties were generally adequate for instructional use, but perhaps less adequate for research, with a 5-day test-retest reliability of .84, and internal consistency coefficients in the range of .53 to .77 in several studies. Item analyses raise some minor questions about the scale. Significant differences were found between the scores obtained by experienced and inexperienced raters when viewing the same videotaped administration of the scale.