This five-item scale measures how much a consumer believes a brand is engaging in cultural appropriation, capturing both disrespect toward people from a culture and unfair commercial benefit from it. Lin, Kim, Uduehi, and Keinan (2024) developed it through open-ended definitions from a representative U.S. sample, interviews with minority consumers, a content analysis of brands accused of appropriation, and factor analysis of brand scenarios. They then used it across a series of studies showing that liberals and conservatives judge appropriation differently, depending on whether they weigh the culture's history of disadvantage.
7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = to a great extent)
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Stem: 'To what extent is the brand...'. Seven candidate items (three on disrespect, three on exploitation, and one asking directly about appropriation) loaded on a single factor in pooled and scenario-level EFAs; one disrespect and one exploitation item were then dropped. Alpha was .92 for the final five items in Scale Development Study 2 (Prolific, four real brand controversies), .97 in Study 1, and .96 in Study 3, and the authors report alphas above .90 and a single factor in every study using it. The items were described as correlating strongly because perceived disrespect and perceived injustice are closely linked. In the authors' studies, liberals reported higher perceived appropriation than conservatives, especially when the culture involved was historically disadvantaged. The full scale is reported in web appendix B of the article. See also Emphasis on Historical Power Imbalance (ID 90554) and Emphasis on Brand Intent (ID 90555), from the same article.
Lin, J. D., Kim, N. Y. J., Uduehi, E., & Keinan, A. (2024). Culture for sale: Unpacking consumer perceptions of cultural appropriation. Journal of Consumer Research, 51(3), 571-594.
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