In the analysis of multivariate observations designed to assess subjects with respect to an attribute, a Guttman scale (named after Louis Guttman) is a single (unidimensional) ordinal scale for the assessment of the attribute, from which the original observations may be reproduced. The discovery of a Guttman scale in data depends on their multivariate distribution's conforming to a particular structure (see below). Hence, a Guttman scale is a hypothesis about the structure of the data, formulated with respect to a specified attribute and a specified population and cannot be constructed for any given set of observations. Contrary to a widespread belief, a Guttman scale is not limited to dichotomous variables and does not necessarily determine an order among the variables. But if variables are all dichotomous, the variables are indeed ordered by their sensitivity in recording the assessed attribute, as illustrated by Example 1.

Example 1: Dichotomous variables

A Guttman scale may be hypothesized for the following five questions that concern the attribute "acceptance of social contact with immigrants" (based on the Bogardus social distance scale), presented to a suitable population:

A positive response by a particular respondent to any question in this list, suggests positive responses by that respondent to all preceding questions in this list. Hence one could expect to obtain only the responses listed in the shaded part (columns 1–5) of Table 1.

Every row in the shaded part of Table 1 (columns 1–5) is the response profile of any number (≥ 0) of respondents. Every profile in this table indicates acceptance of immigrants in all senses indicated by the previous profile, plus an additional sense in which immigrants are accepted. If, in a large number of observations, only the profiles listed in Table 1 are observed, then the Guttman scale hypothesis is supported, and the values of the scale (last column of Table 1) have the following properties:

Guttman scale, if supported by data, is useful for efficiently assessing subjects (respondents, testees or any collection of investigated objects) on a one-dimensional scale with respect to the specified attribute. Typically, Guttman scales are found with respect to attributes that are narrowly defined.

While other scaling techniques (e.g., Likert scale) produce a single scale by summing up respondents' scores—a procedure that assumes, often without justification, that all observed variables have equal weights — Guttman scale avoids weighting the observed variables; thus 'respecting' data for what they are. If a Guttman scale is confirmed, the measurement of the attribute is intrinsically one-dimensional; the unidimensionality is not forced by summation or averaging. This feature renders it appropriate for the construction of replicable scientific theories and meaningful measurements, as explicated in facet theory. 

Given a data set of N subjects observed with respect to n ordinal variables, each having any finite number (≥2) of numerical categories ordered by increasing strength of a pre-specified attribute, let a_ij be the score obtained by subject i on variable j, and define the list of scores that subject i obtained on the n variables, a_i=a_i1...a_in , to be the profile of subject i. (The number of categories may be different in different variables; and the order of the variables in the profiles is not important but should be fixed).