State Guilt Scale

What it measures

A four-item scale measuring the degree of guilt a person feels in response to a specific, identifiable incident. Items capture the core phenomenology of guilt — personal responsibility, remorse, and moral self-blame — rather than a generalised negative affect state. Instructions direct respondents to a focal event specified by the researcher using a blank in the stem phrase. The scale was used in a service failure context where perceived guilt mediated the relationship between degree of co-creation and negative disconfirmation, but its item content is general enough to apply across diverse incident types. The items are common to many guilt measures, with the closest structural resemblance to the DES II (Izard, 1977). Construct reliability was .941 and AVE was .798 (Heidenreich et al., 2015), indicating strong convergent validity.

Scale items

• With regard to the __________, I feel guilty.
• With regard to the __________, I feel repentant.
• With regard to the __________, I feel blameworthy.
• With regard to the __________, I feel responsible.

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

Usage notes & scoring

Heidenreich et al. (2015) stated they were 'following' Lau-Gesk and Meyers-Levy (2009) as a source, but only one item closely resembles that instrument; the items are more consistent with Izard's (1977) DES II. The response anchors used in the original German consumer panel study were 'totally disagree' (1) and 'totally agree' (7); it is unclear whether the scale was administered in German or English. A short phrase identifying the focal event should be inserted in the blank of the stem; the original study used 'incidence of the service failure.' The scale should be distinguished from the Consumer Guilt and Shame Scale (id:281), which measures purchase-specific guilt rather than guilt attached to an externally defined incident. Reliability reported as composite reliability (CR/ω) rather than Cronbach's α; the value entered in the alpha field reflects CR. CR and omega are computed from the same formula using CFA factor loadings and are treated as equivalent here.

Citation

Heidenreich, S., Wittkowski, K., Handrich, M., & Falk, T. (2015). The dark side of customer co-creation: Exploring the consequences of failed co-created services. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), 279–296.