Brand Mistreatment Rumination

What it measures

Measures a consumer's belief that memories of being wronged or mistreated by a brand and its employees would be intrusive, persistent, and difficult to suppress. Used in Preliminary Study 2 (n = 289 European Clickworker participants) in research on brand sabotage. Adapted from Wade et al. (2008) — the primary difference being that the original scale focused on harm caused by a person, while this version focuses on harm caused by a brand and its employees.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=I completely disagree, 7=I completely agree)

Scale items

• I would not be able to stop thinking about how I was wronged by the brand (and its employees).
• Memories about the unfair behavior and the statements of the brand (and its employees) would limit my enjoyment of life.
• I would have a hard time getting thoughts of how I was mistreated by the brand (and its employees) out of my head.
• The wrong I suffered would never be far from my mind.
• I would replay the events over and over in my mind.
• I would try to figure out the reasons why the brand (and its employees) treated me so badly.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Items provided by Kähr (2018) via personal correspondence. Response anchors: I completely disagree (1) to I completely agree (7). Adapted from Wade, Vogel, Liao, & Goldman (2008), Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(3), 419–426, who measured rumination about an interpersonal offense. Companion scales: Brand Hostility (ID 832) and Consumer Powerlessness Toward a Brand (ID 833), same paper.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Kähr, A., Nyffenegger, B., Krohmer, H., & Hoyer, W.D. (2016). When hostile consumers wreak havoc on your brand: The phenomenon of consumer brand sabotage. Journal of Marketing, 80(3), 25–41.

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