Talk:Diamond of opposites

A search of psycinfo, eric and biomed produced zero hits for "diamond of opposites." The concept may be interesting but the article should be deleted on the grounds that it is research, and not encyclopedic. Nesbit 16:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll try to find references within 2 days. Lakinekaki 03:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll change my vote to not delete, on the basis of the following passage which I found in one of your references. I encourage you to elaborate on the method and more fully explain it in the article. Thanks for responding so promptly :-) Nesbit 05:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Carlson-Sabelli et al. (1992) and Carlson-Sabelli, Sabelli, and Hale (1994) have criticized the traditional sociometric measurement for (a) focusing on choices and ignoring why choices are made, (b) treating opposites (choice versus rejection and indifference) as mutually exclusive categories or as the opposite ends of a continuum (i.e., love and hate toward the same person can coexist resulting in push and pull processes operating simultaneously), and (c) using a linear scale whereby choices are rank ordered from least to most. Carlson-Sabelli et al. (1994) described a sociodynamic approach that uses the traditional nomination procedure (with or without ranking) along with the measurement of opposite processes of attraction and repulsion via the "plane phase of opposites"--or less technically "the diamond of opposites"--toward a person, activity, or opinion (p. 162). The diamond of opposites can be used to gather data in writing or in action. To use it in action, draw a large diamond in the center of a room and ask group members to place themselves within the marked areas of the diamond in a location that best reflects the intensity of their combined positive and negative feelings toward a significant other.

In Carlson-Sabelli et al.'s (1994) scheme, the bottom vertex of the diamond represents indifferent, neutral, or zero feelings, and the top vertex represents contradictory, ambiguous feeling characterized by intense but opposite (equally positive and negative) feeling. Thus, the area within the diamond of opposites is divided into four quadrants: (a) bottom (weak feelings of both attraction and repulsion), (b) top (strong contradictory feelings of both attraction and repulsion), (c) left (attraction), and (d) right (repulsion) (see Figure 1).

According to Carlson-Sabelli et al. (1994), the diamond can be used to prepare interpersonal profiles for a variety of criteria such as harmony-conflict, approach-avoidance, and attraction-repulsion represented as opposite axes of separate diamonds. Respondents are asked to rank order their significant others in terms of how much time the respondent (a) wishes to spend with their significant others (ideal rank order) and (b) actually spends with their significant others (actual rank order). Next, they locate their significant others by marking points in each of the diamonds (harmony-conflict, attraction-repulsion, and approach-avoidance) first to indicate the actual rank order and second to indicate the ideal rank order. Connecting the dots within each diamond provides interpersonal profiles (for criteria of interest) for significant relationships, which can then be compared. Carlson-Sabelli et al. mentioned that their approach can be used in conjunction with the SNI (Treadwell et al., 1993) to determine social distances. (See Carlson-Sabelli et al., 1992, 1994, for more information on the mathematics of the sociodynamic approach.)


 * Can I just add this paragraph to the article? is there a copyright issue? Or I can ask Doctor Sabelli to write description tomorrow.Lakinekaki 06:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The article states that “Diamond of opposites is a two-dimensional scaling method, measuring positive and negative response to a statement”. As presented, this is clearly false. The so-called diamond represents a confused use of continua to form two-dimensional space. This is evident in the statement in the quote above: ‘(a) bottom (weak feelings of both attraction and repulsion), (b) top (strong contradictory feelings of both attraction and repulsion), (c) left (attraction), and (d) right (repulsion)’. Why? If left (negative on x-axis) represents attraction and right (positive on x-axis) represents repulsion, why should the top centre (0 on x-axis) represent “strong contradictory feelings of both attraction and repulsion”. This implies that the left and right regions have one meaning in the centre but an entirely different meaning at the top or bottom, which is entirely inconsistent. An analogy would be having left and right represent small and large mass when y-coordinates are near 0 but represent simultaneously small and large mass when y-coordinates are large positive! This is nonsensical, and indicates a confused use of continua. I can elaborate further if required. BTW, the problem is not in hypothesizing that, for example, love and hate may not mutually exclusive. A researcher could hypothesize that 'don't care less' is the other end of the spectrum for both love and hate, and accordingly attempt to scale love and hate separately. This is a different issue. I've removed it from psychometrics category and will remove it from scaling methods because there are no citations indicating this has been recognized in psychometrics as a basis for scaling. I'd be very surprised if there were unless the 'diamond' is being misrepresented in the article and quote appearing above. Holon 10:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * O! I see now! You did not understand this 2-dimensional plot. It is like adding vectors. Lakinekaki 16:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I understood perfectly, as indicated yesterday Lakinekaki, and the attempt to use 2-dim space is precisely the problem. It is not 'like adding vectors' because there are no well-defined vectors to begin with. If you disagree, please provide information to clarify, preferably with references. Holon 01:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)



Although I think the plot is crucial to understanding the concept and should be kept, I'd suggest that less emphasis be placed on the idea of data visualization and more on the process by which the data is gathered. After all, it's just an x,y plot of two variables. The two other distinguishing features seem to be: Nesbit 20:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * the two variables must be semantic opposites (as in semantic differential items)
 * critically, the 'respondent' is asked to place themselves in the space. That is, the plot is explicitly created by the respondent not created after the fact.
 * Is it 'just an x,y plot of two variables' though? If so, why are responses restricted to a 'diamond' in a cartesian plane rather than being anywhere? In semantic differential items, the two variable are semantic opposites, whereas it is totally unclear from information provided so far what two continua are supposed to represent. I'm not raising this to argue for deletion, I want the reader to be aware of the issues. Perhaps they can be clarified? Holon 02:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * --Thx for the clarification Nesbit. The continua are not represented according to the usual convention in which one axis is horizontal, the other vertical. It is perfectly fine not to use convention, particularly to make a point, but this should be pointed out to the reader otherwise it is confusing. The diagram makes this clear, so I have made it larger. Note the diagram has 0 to 10 on axes whereas the example refers to 1 to 10. Not a big deal but could be confusing. Holon 04:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I asked Dr. Sabelli to see this article and improve it, and she'll do it as soon as her schedule permits it, probably by the end of the week. Unlike me, she will be able to suggest the right links and categories for this entry. Thanks for putting psychodrama category, it seems to be appropriate. Lakinekaki 01:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Webapplication
I finished some time ago a web based application that illustrates/compares diamond with linear scale. If you think it is useful, you can put it as external link in the article. http://www.explore-ideas.com/Diamond_Of_Opposites.php

Lakinekaki 16:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)