Advertising Scepticism Scale

What it measures

Measures the general tendency to disbelieve advertising claims — a stable dispositional scepticism that spans all advertising and product categories rather than scepticism toward a specific ad. Higher advertising scepticism is associated with reduced advertising effectiveness, greater persuasion knowledge activation, and more deliberative processing of ad claims.

Representative items

• Advertising's aim is to inform consumers.
• I believe advertising is informative. (R)
• Advertising is a reliable source of information about the quality and performance of products. (R)
• Advertising is truth in packaging.
• In general, advertising presents a true picture of the product being advertised. (R)

Citation

Obermiller, C., & Spangenberg, E.R. (1998). Development of a scale to measure consumer skepticism toward advertising. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 7(2), 159–186.