Triad Test
The triad test is an elicitation technique for measuring perceived similarity among the items of a cultural domain. Informants are shown items three at a time and asked to pick the one that is most different (or, equivalently, which two are most alike). Across many triads and many informants, the pattern of which items are repeatedly kept together yields a fine-grained similarity matrix that is analyzed with multidimensional scaling and clustering.
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Sources
- Weller, S. C., & Romney, A. K. (1988). Systematic Data Collection. Qualitative Research Methods Series 10. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. ISBN: 9780803930742
- Borgatti, S. P. (1994). Cultural domain analysis. Journal of Quantitative Anthropology, 4(4), 261–278. link ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Triadic Comparison Test for Perceived Similarity. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/anthropology/triad-test
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Cultural Domain AnalysisAnthropology↔ compare
- Free ListingAnthropology↔ compare
- Multidimensional ScalingStatistics↔ compare
- Pile SortingAnthropology↔ compare