Whenever I ask for feedback with friends, I say “on a scale of 1-7” which has the effect of being both a tad off-putting and rather memorable. Assuming I care

Whenever I ask for feedback with friends, I say “on a scale of 1-7” which has the effect of being both a tad off-putting and rather memorable. Assuming I care how they respond, there are a few benefits: - people are conditioned to rate at the extremities with a 10-point scale, whereas they tend to use the whole spectrum more when the scale is reduced to seven points. - most people don’t realize that “1-10” has no true middle number. On the other hand, 4/7 is perfectly “in the middle”. - if you believe psychologists, the average persons working memory is “7, +/-2” items. In my opinion, the brain seems to treat the “2” and “3” responses on a 10-point scale as roughly indistinguishable. There is similar haziness between “6” and “7”. The average person seems more capable of making distinctions across seven points. Anyway, when you’re asking for feedback (and not on a first date), consider the seven-point scale!