The CDS is one of the earliest validated measures of consumer discontent — generalised consumer dissatisfaction with the operations of the overall marketing system, including product quality, advertising practices, pricing, retailing, and consumer service. Lundstrom and Lamont (1976) developed the CDS during the height of the US consumerism movement, motivated by the need for a quantitative instrument to measure and track the widespread discontent that the movement expressed through political advocacy, boycotts, and regulatory pressure. The CDS captures dissatisfaction across five substantive content areas that Lundstrom and Lamont identified as the primary focuses of consumer grievances: product quality and safety, advertising and promotion, pricing and value, retailing and service quality, and corporate social responsibility. Unlike alienation measures (which capture estrangement and helplessness) or attitude measures (which capture evaluative beliefs), the CDS focuses specifically on affective discontent — the felt dissatisfaction with how the marketing system performs its social function of satisfying consumer needs. High-CDS consumers are more likely to engage in complaint behaviour, boycotts, and advocacy for consumer protection regulation. The CDS has been used extensively in consumer policy research, comparative marketing system studies, and longitudinal tracking of consumer sentiment. While the scale is now over four decades old and some specific item referents are dated, the underlying construct — generalised discontent with marketplace performance — remains theoretically and socially relevant, particularly in contemporary debates about corporate accountability, algorithmic pricing, and platform capitalism.
Lundstrom, W.J., & Lamont, L.M. (1976). The development of a scale to measure consumer discontent. Journal of Marketing, 40(3), 54–60.
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