Tourism Memory Characteristics Scale

Name: Tourism Memory Characteristics Scale
Published: 2022
License: https://psychometricscales.com/methodology.html

TMCSThe phenomenological characteristics of tourism memory, capturing the cognitive, affective, and social dimensions through which individuals access, experience, and share autobiographical memories of tourism experiences.

26 items 2022 α Accessibility: alpha = .94; Trip Details: alpha = .85; Emotional Intensity: alpha = .88; Sharing: alpha = .93; Valence: alpha = .86; Sensory Details: alpha = .84; Vividness: alpha = .84 (CFA, N = 351) Free Kim, Y., Ribeiro, M. A., & Li, G.

What it measures

The TMCS measures seven phenomenological characteristics of tourism autobiographical memory, grounded in the Self-Memory System (Conway 2005) and cognitive psychology frameworks for autobiographical memory (Sutin and Robins 2007; Boyacioglu and Akfirat 2015). Accessibility captures the ease and frequency with which tourists can mentally retrieve a trip from memory; Trip Details reflects the clarity of memory for places visited; Emotional Intensity measures the intensity of emotions evoked during memory retrieval; Sharing reflects the frequency with which tourists share the memory with others; Valence captures the positivity of the remembered experience; Sensory Details reflects the richness of sensory re-experiencing (smell, touch, sound, bodily sensation); and Vividness captures the visual clarity and detail of the memory. Developed via pilot study EFA (N=355) reducing 51 items to 33, followed by CFA on a main study sample (N=351) further reducing to 26 items. Both samples drawn from US adults via Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree). Note: Accessibility items are reverse-scored — higher scores indicate easier memory access.

Scale items

Accessibility (5 items, reverse-scored). Higher scores indicate easier/more frequent memory access. Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

I had to think for a while before I could recall this trip.
I had to search my memory to recall this trip.
I do not recall this trip very often.
Since it happened, I have not thought about this trip very often.
It was difficult for me to think of this memory.

Trip Details (3 items). Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

My memory for the region(s) where I traveled is clear.
My memory for the city(ies) where I traveled is clear.
My memory for the destination(s) where I traveled is clear.

Emotional Intensity (4 items). Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

This memory evokes powerful emotions.
This memory evokes strong emotions in me.
My emotions are very intense concerning this trip.
While remembering this trip now, my feelings are very intense.

Sharing (4 items). Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

I often talk about this trip with my friends or family.
I frequently tell others about this memory.
I frequently talk about this trip with others.
I often share this memory with others.

Valence (3 items). Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

The overall tone of this memory is quite positive.
My feelings at the time were quite positive.
My overall feeling about this trip is quite positive.

Sensory Details (4 items). Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

When I recall this memory, I can smell in my mind the things that I smelled during the trip.
When I recall this memory, I can remember tactile details related to the trip.
When I recall this memory, I can hear in my mind the sounds that I heard during the trip.
When I recall this memory, I can feel the bodily sensation that I felt during the trip.

Vividness (3 items). Response format: 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree).

My memory for this trip is very vivid.
My memory for this trip is very clear.
My memory for this trip is very detailed.

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

Usage notes & scoring

The TMCS is conceptually related to but distinct from the MTE Scale (Kim, Ritchie, and McCormick 2012; ID 2153) and the MTES (Kim 2014; ID 308). The MTE and MTES measure the experiential dimensions of tourism that contribute to memorability; the TMCS measures the phenomenological characteristics of the resulting memory itself. Respondents should be instructed to write a brief description of an important tourism experience before completing the scale, as per Sutin and Robins (2007) and Boyacioglu and Akfirat (2015). Accessibility items are all reverse-scored; high scores indicate that the memory is easily and frequently accessible. Minor discriminant validity flag: the Fornell-Larcker criterion is marginally violated between Trip Details and Valence (AVE square root for Trip Details = .81 vs. correlation with Valence = .82), though HTMT for this pair is within the 0.85 threshold. AVE: Accessibility .74; Trip Details .65; Emotional Intensity .65; Sharing .79; Valence .69; Sensory Details .58; Vividness .65. CR: .94, .85, .88, .93, .87, .85, .84 respectively. Tourism memory (second-stage formative construct) strongly predicted revisit intention (beta = .73, p < .001) and WOM (beta = .71, p < .001), R2 = .52 and .50 respectively.

Recommended companion scales

2153308

Citation

Kim, Y., Ribeiro, M. A., & Li, G. (2022). Tourism memory characteristics scale: Development and validation. Journal of Travel Research, 61(6), 1308–1326.

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Keywords

#tourismmemory#autobiographicalmemory#memoryphenomenology#vividness#sensorymemory#emotionalmemory#memorysharing#revisitintention#wordofmouth#post-trip#experiencerecall

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