A six-item, five-point uni-polar scale measuring the extent to which a person's capacity to pay attention has been reached or exceeded. Items capture the subjective experience of cognitive saturation — feeling overwhelmed, scattered, distracted, confused, and preoccupied — with one reverse-scored item (focused) anchoring the opposite pole. The source of the scale was not identified by the author and is assumed to have been developed for the study. Used in Study 5 of a multi-study investigation into how threats to personal control lead consumers to seek structured environments and bounded products. In this context, attentional overload was examined as a mediating state linking control threat to preferences for structured consumption.
5-point uni-polar scale (1=very slightly or not at all, 5=extremely); item 2 is reverse-scored
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
This scale captures a generalised state of attentional saturation and should be distinguished from task-specific distraction scales in the database (e.g., In-Store Shopping Distraction, ID 976; Shopping Task Distraction, ID 977; Experimental Task Distraction, ID 978), which measure inability to focus during a defined activity. The Attention Overload Scale instead captures a broader sense that one's cognitive capacity has been exceeded across contexts, characterised by feelings of being overwhelmed, scattered, and confused rather than merely off-task. The same parent article also contains a General Anxiety scale (see ID 1911 in this database for the closest equivalent), but the Attention Overload construct is theoretically and empirically distinct from anxiety. No formal validity assessment was reported. The scale was used as a mediating variable in the context of personal control research.
Cutright, K.M. (2012). The beauty of boundaries: When and why we seek structure in consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(5), 775-790.
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