Advertising Skepticism

What it measures

Nine items assess a consumer's general tendency to disbelieve advertising claims marketplace-wide, irrespective of medium or campaign. Higher scores on the non-reversed items reflect greater trust; items require reversal to yield a skepticism score.

Response format

5-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree)

Scale items

• We can depend on getting the truth in most advertising. (r)
• Advertising's aim is to inform the consumer. (r)
• I believe advertising is informative. (r)
• Advertising is generally truthful. (r)
• Advertising is a reliable source of information about the quality and performance of products. (r)
• Advertising is truth well told. (r)
• In general, advertising presents a true picture of the product being advertised. (r)
• I feel I've been accurately informed after viewing most advertisements. (r)
• Most advertising provides consumers with essential information. (r)

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Developed by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998) through multiple studies supporting unidimensionality and consistency. Alpha .92 (Hardesty et al. 2002); alphas .808–.86 across three studies (Obermiller et al. 2005). All items are worded in the direction of trust and must be reverse-scored to index skepticism. Item 5 appears truncated in extraction—verify full wording against the original article.

Citation

Obermiller, C., & Spangenberg, E. R. (1998). Development of a scale to measure consumer skepticism toward advertising. Journal of Advertising, 27(2), 1–15.

Keywords