In science and research, attribute is a characteristic of an object (person, thing, etc.).[1] Attributes are closely related to variables. Variable is a logical set of attributes.[1] Variables can "vary" - for example, be high or low.[1] How high, or how low, is determined by the value of the attribute (and in fact, an attribute could be just the word "low" or "high").[1]
Examples:
Note that attributes make take different form - words, numbers. Thus they can belong to different levels of measurement. While attributes are often intuitive, in some cases the scientists may decide to artificially limit the amount of attributes a variable has. This process is usually part of the operationalization process. In the example of social class variable cited above the listed attributes (lower, middle and upper class) are not the only ones that could be used; each class could be differentiated between upper and lower, transforming thus changing the three attributes into six (see the model proposed by William Lloyd Warner) or it could use different terminology (such as the working class as in the model by Gilbert and Kahl). In another