Personal Economic Optimism

What it measures

Captures a person's forward-looking beliefs about their financial situation, including anticipated income growth and improved capacity to save and manage spending. Borrowed from Tam and Dholakia (2011) by Yoon and Kim (2016) in research on perceived economic mobility and impulsive spending. Items can be reworded to specify a particular time horizon (e.g., next month vs. three months from now), as Tam and Dholakia demonstrated across experimental conditions.

Response format

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

Scale items

• I will probably have more money to spend in the future than I have now.
• In the future, my income flow will be a lot higher than it is now.
• I feel optimistic that I will be able to save more in the future when compared to now.
• I will be able to control my spending more in the future than I do now.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Response anchors: strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Items can be reworded to refer to a specific timeframe (e.g., 'next month,' 'three months from today') depending on the experimental condition, as demonstrated in the origin study.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Yoon, S., & Kim, H.C. (2016). Keeping the American dream alive: The interactive effect of perceived economic mobility and materialism on impulsive spending. Journal of Marketing Research, 53(5), 759–772. Scale origin: Tam, L., & Dholakia, U.M. (2011). Delay and duration effects of time frames on personal savings estimates and behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 114(2), 142–152.

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