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Purchase Anxiety Scale

PANXThe degree to which a consumer feels anxious, nervous, and worried about purchasing a specified product
3 items 2012 α alpha = .89 (Thomas & Tsai, 2012; Study 3, n=243) Free Thomas, M., & Tsai, C.I.

What it measures

A three-item, seven-point Likert-type scale measuring the anxiety a consumer experiences in anticipation of purchasing a specific product. Each item uses a flexible stem with a blank to be filled with the name of the focal product category, allowing the scale to be applied across a wide range of purchase contexts. Developed and used in Study 3 of a four-experiment investigation into how psychological distance modulates the subjective experience of task difficulty, including the anxiety associated with making complex or unfamiliar purchase decisions. Two-item versions of the scale (excluding the 'nervous' item) were used in the article's earlier studies to capture anxiety in non-purchase contexts, with the full three-item version reserved for the purchase scenario.

Citation

Thomas, M., & Tsai, C.I. (2012). Psychological distance and subjective experience: How distancing reduces the feeling of difficulty. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(2), 324-340.

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