Serendipity (Products)

What it measures

The scale measures a felt sense of serendipity around discovering a product, capturing the pleasant surprise of an unexpected find.

Response format

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

Scale items

• I feel that the products I received from the company were a good surprise.
• I feel lucky to have come across these products.
• I feel that these products were an unexpected discovery.
• I feel that there was some element of chance involved in having received these exact products.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Source not stated by Kim et al. (2021), who adjusted item phrasing slightly to fit each study's context; this version was used with a large MTurk sample. Reliability was good (α = .83). Validity wasn't separately discussed. A companion version adapted for a music context is also available on this site.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Kim, A., Affonso, F.M., Laran, J., & Durante, K.M. (2021). Serendipity: Chance Encounters in the Marketplace Enhance Consumer Satisfaction. Journal of Marketing, 85(4), 141–157.

Keywords