Digestion Capability

What it measures

A three-item scale measuring a consumer's sense of their body's capability and preparedness to digest food effectively. Items assess subjective digestive ease, bodily preparedness for dietary variety, and confidence that digestion will proceed without difficulty. Developed for research examining how mechanistic health messaging affects consumer self-perception and food consumption behaviour, the scale captures the embodied dimension of digestive self-efficacy.

Response format

7-point Likert

Scale items

• I feel that my body can easily digest the food I consume.
• I feel that my body is prepared to digest a variety of food items easily.
• I feel that my body has no problem digesting what I choose to eat.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Single alpha: α = .85 — Weihrauch & Huang (2021, Study 3; n = 295 undergraduates at a large Dutch university). VALIDITY: Not discussed. Scale source not stated — appears original to the authors. Used to examine the downstream effects of mechanistic (machine-like) health framing on perceived bodily capability. Companion to the Dehumanization scale (DHUM, ID 2067) from the same study — together they form the measurement core of the mechanistic health messaging research. NOTE: Items were administered in Dutch in the original study; the English version shown here is the likely source-language version but cross-language equivalence has not been reported.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Weihrauch, Andrea and Szu-Chi Huang (2021). Portraying humans as machines to promote health: Unintended risks, mechanisms, and solutions. Journal of Marketing, 85(3), 184–203.

Keywords