Attitude Toward the Possession

What it measures

A six-item scale measuring the degree to which a consumer extends their sense of self through a specific possession — feeling that the object reflects who they are, experiencing personal attacks or praise vicariously through the object, and caring deeply about others' perceptions of it. Items contain blanks to be filled with the name of the focal possession. Rooted in the self-extension literature, the scale captures the psychological incorporation of an object into the self-concept across cognitive, affective, and social dimensions.

Response format

7-point Likert

Scale items

• My _____ reminds me of who I am.
• If I lost my _____ I would feel like I lost a little of myself.
• If someone ridiculed my _____ I would feel attacked.
• If someone praised my _____ I would feel somewhat praised myself.
• The appearance of my _____ to others matters a lot to me.
• When I get a new _____, it's important to me that people know about it.

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 focal possession (e.g., 'smartphone', 'car', 'laptop'). Single alpha: α = .87 — Melumad & Pham (2020, Study 1, n = 885 MTurk). VALIDITY: Not formally addressed. Scale adapted from Ball & Tasaki (1992) car attachment measure, with four items adapted and two new items added. From the same study as the five Smartphone subscales (SMHP, SMPR, SMPT, SMSC, SMPS, SMST) — see those entries for smartphone-specific attitude measures.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Melumad, Shiri and Michel Tuan Pham (2020). The smartphone as a pacifier: A psychological and physiological investigation of its effects on stressed consumers. Journal of Marketing Research, 57(2), 236–256.

Keywords