Four items tap the degree to which a person subjectively experiences their available resources as scarce. Because the items are deliberately general, the resource domain -- whether financial, temporal, social, or otherwise -- must be specified through study instructions or framing before administration. This state-like measure is sensitive to induced scarcity contexts and may shift meaningfully between experimental conditions.
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Developed without a cited prior source; authorship of the original items is attributed to the paper's authors. The measure was designed to detect the success of resource scarcity manipulations rather than serve as a standalone individual-difference instrument, and therefore captures a transient psychological state rather than a stable dispositional trait. Researchers deploying it outside experimental manipulation-check contexts should consider adding anchoring instructions that specify the type of resource and relevant time horizon. Context-free administration risks ambiguity about whether participants are reporting on financial, temporal, social, or other resource domains.
Roux, C., Goldsmith, K., & Bonezzi, A. (2015). On the psychology of scarcity: When reminders of resource scarcity promote selfish (and generous) behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 42(4), 615-631.
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