Desire for Abundance

What it measures

A five-item scale measuring the intensity of a consumer's momentary desire to possess and own many things. Items capture immediate material wanting across hedonic, motivational, and comparative dimensions — the wish to have a lot, the belief that having more would increase happiness, and a preference for abundance over scarcity at the current moment. Designed as a manipulation check for resource scarcity-induced desire, the scale is anchored in the present moment ('at this moment') and is sensitive to experimentally induced states of material wanting.

Response format

7-point Likert

Scale items

• At this moment, I desire to have a lot of things.
• At this moment, I desire to own a lot of things.
• At this moment, having a lot of things would make me happy.
• My thoughts at this time are geared towards having a lot of things.
• At this moment, I would prefer having a lot, compared to having little.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Two reliability estimates: α = .95 (3-item version, Study 2A) and α = .94 (5-item version, Study 2B) — Park, Lalwani & Silvera (2020). The 5-item version was used as a manipulation check for scarcity-induced desire and successfully detected the manipulation. VALIDITY: Not formally discussed. NOTE: A 3-item shorter version (items 1, 2, and 5, or similar subset) was also used. Items are explicitly anchored to the present moment ('At this moment') — appropriate for within-session state measurement immediately following a manipulation. Not suitable for assessing chronic or dispositional materialism. Scale appears original to the authors.

Recommended companion scales

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.

Keywords