Personal Mastery

What it measures

The scale measures a person's sense of control over their own life outcomes — the belief that they can achieve what they set their mind to and that their future depends mainly on their own actions. Adapted from an established measure of perceived mastery, it was used to test how a sense of personal control interacts with life-role transitions in shaping consumer responses to brand extensions.

Response format

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

Scale items

• I can do just about anything I really set my mind to.
• When I really want to do something, I can find a way to succeed at it.
• Whether or not I am able to get what I want is in my own hands.
• What happens to me in the future mostly depends on me.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Adapted from Lachman and Weaver's (1998) established measure of personal mastery (part of their broader 'sense of control' framework); used by Su, Monga, and Jiang (2021), who referred to it as perceived control, with MTurk participants. Reliability was good (α = .85). Validity wasn't separately assessed.

Citation

Su, L., Monga, A.B., & Jiang, Y. (2021). How Life-Role Transitions Shape Consumer Responses to Brand Extensions. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(3), 579–594.

Keywords