Anticipation of the Holiday

What it measures

A three-item scale measuring the extent to which a person is looking forward to an upcoming holiday or leisure event. Items assess positive anticipatory emotion — excitement, forward-looking engagement, and expected positive experience — capturing the hedonic state of pre-event anticipation. The blanks in each item should be replaced with the specific holiday or event being studied, allowing flexible application across different experiential contexts.

Response format

7-point Likert

Scale items

• How much are you looking forward to _____?
• How excited are you about your _____ plans?
• How positive do you expect your _____ experience will be?

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

Usage notes & scoring

FILL-IN-THE-BLANK FORMAT: Blanks should be replaced with the specific holiday or event (e.g., 'Thanksgiving', 'your trip', 'the festival'). Single alpha: α = .93 — Tonietto & Barasch (2021, Study 3, n = 505 MTurk). VALIDITY: Not discussed. Scale appears original to the authors.

Citation

Tonietto, Gabriela N. and Alixandra Barasch (2021). Generating content increases enjoyment by immersing consumers and accelerating perceived time. Journal of Marketing, 85(6), 83–100.

Keywords