General Shopping Involvement

What it measures

Measures a person's general orientation toward shopping as an important, exciting, and enjoyable activity. Items are explicitly framed as general attitudes ('in general') rather than context-specific responses, making it a stable individual difference measure of hedonic shopping orientation. Validated across two large samples (n=883 and n=501) with strong internal consistency. Core item vocabulary was adapted from Wakefield and Baker's (1998) mall excitement study. Useful for segmenting task-oriented vs. recreation-oriented shoppers.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

Scale items

• In general, going shopping is important to me.
• In general, going shopping is exciting to me.
• In general, going shopping means a lot to me.
• In general, going shopping is fun.

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

Usage notes & scoring

All items include 'In general' stem, making this a trait-level rather than situational measure. Adapted from Wakefield & Baker (1998), Journal of Retailing, 74(4), 515–539.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Albrecht, C.M., Hattula, S., & Lehmann, D.R. (2017). The relationship between consumer shopping stress and purchase abandonment in task-oriented and recreation-oriented consumers. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(5), 720–740.

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