Example: Breakfast Item Preferences
In a classic study 1, 21 Wharton School MBA students and their spouses were asked to rank 15 breakfast items in order of preference, from 1 = "most preferred" to 15 = "least preferred." This information is collected in breakfast_overall.sav. See the topic Sample Files for more information.
The results of the study provide a typical example of the degeneracy problem inherent in most multidimensional unfolding algorithms that is solved by penalizing the coefficient of variation of the transformed proximities 2. You will see a degenerate solution and will see how to solve the problem using Multidimensional Unfolding, allowing you to determine how individuals discriminate between breakfast items. Syntax for reproducing these analyses can be found in prefscal_breakfast-overall.sps.