Comfort Felt

What it measures

A four-item scale measuring the momentary sense of emotional ease and comfort a consumer experiences. Two items are positively keyed (ease, comfort) and two are reverse-scored (anxious, stressed), providing a balanced assessment of the calm-distress continuum. Developed to capture the stress-reduction effects of smartphone use, the scale is applicable to any research context in which the subjective experience of comfort or emotional ease is the outcome of interest.

Representative items

• I feel at ease.
• I feel a sense of comfort.
• I feel anxious. (r)
• I feel stressed. (r)

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.