Involvement with the Product Category

What it measures

The scale measures how personally relevant and important a product category feels to a consumer, a foundational construct in consumer psychology tied to information search and decision effort.

Response format

5-point semantic differential

Scale items

• unimportant / important
• of no concern to me / of concern to me
• irrelevant / relevant
• means nothing to me / means a lot to me
• uninterested / interested

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

Usage notes & scoring

Kim and Ball (2021) built this six-item scale by drawing from measures by Goldsmith and Emmert (1991) and Mittal (1995); notably, these items are also a subset of Zaichkowsky's (1985) well-known Personal Involvement Inventory, though that source wasn't cited by the authors. Reliability was excellent, ranging α = .95–.96 across two product contexts (children's shampoo, car shampoo). Validity wasn't separately assessed. One item (uninterested/interested) has been flagged elsewhere as awkwardly worded and may benefit from rephrasing.

Citation

Kim, Taemin and Jennifer Gerard Ball (2021), "Unintended Consequences of Warmth Appeals: An Extension of the Compensation Effect between Warmth and Competence to Advertising," Journal of Advertising, 50 (5), 622-638.

Keywords