This scale measures how unique, novel, and different a product is perceived to be. Sheehan and Dommer (2020) used it in two studies as part of a broader investigation into why consumers are often less likely to use products that carry personal identity relevance (such as a notepad or drink bottle bearing their university's name) than otherwise identical unbranded versions, a pattern the authors term the "identity conservation effect."
7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Reliability was good in both administrations (α = .80, Study 1, n = 113; α = .84, Study 2, n = 241; Sheehan and Dommer 2020, p. 1081). Both studies drew on undergraduates at the University of Kentucky. The scale's source was not identified and appears to have been created by the authors. Rather than serving as the paper's central measure, novelty was used to test and rule out an alternative explanation for the identity conservation effect: identity-relevant products (e.g., a notepad reading "Notes of a Wildcat" or a Coca-Cola bottle reading "Share a Coke with Wildcats") were indeed rated as more novel than their generic counterparts in both studies, but when entered as a competing mediator alongside a measure of scarcity and the study's possession-value/in-use-value tradeoff, novelty's indirect effect on consumption intentions was not significant — only the value tradeoff explained the reduced usage of identity-relevant goods. Researchers considering this scale should note it functioned in the source study as a check against an alternative account rather than as a validated standalone construct measure in its own right; its validity was not separately assessed.
Sheehan, D., & Dommer, S.L. (2020). Saving Your Self: How Identity Relevance Influences Product Usage. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(6), 1076–1092.
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