Accountability Degree

What it measures

A four-item state measure assessing the extent to which an individual feels personally responsible for a decision they have made. Items capture the subjective sense of answerability for one's choices, concern about error, and the motivation to reach a correct outcome. Developed for use in experimental consumer decision-making research, the scale is grounded in accountability theory from social psychology.

Representative items

• I felt accountable for the choices I made.
• It was important to me to get things right.
• I felt accountable for how I evaluated the options.

Citation

Mehta, Ravi, JoAndrea Hoegg, and Amitav Chakravarti (2011). Knowing too much: Expertise-induced false recall effects in product comparison. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(3), 535–554.