Categorization Tendency (Chronic)

What it measures

A five-item scale measuring an individual's stable tendency to mentally organise and group objects, events, personalities, and products into categories based on perceived similarities. Items tap enjoyment of grouping, ease of perceiving similarities, and habitual categorisation behaviour across domains. Designed to capture a domain-general categorisation disposition rather than domain-specific expertise, the scale is applicable to research examining how individual differences in categorical thinking shape product perception, price judgments, and decision making.

Representative items

• I tend to categorize things (e.g., objects, events, personalities, products).
• I enjoy grouping things in mind.
• I find myself geared toward categorizing things.

Citation

Park, Hanyong, Ashok K. Lalwani, and David H. Silvera (2020). The impact of resource scarcity on price-quality judgments. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(6), 1110–1124.