Go Back

Impulse Buying Tendency Scale

Brief Description:
• Weun, Jones, & Beatty (1998) 
• Buying is viewed in terms of impulse-control.
• People vary in their proclivity to buy on impulse.

Type of Measure:
• Self-completed
• 5 items (originally 7)
• 7-point scale

Target Population:
• Adults

Scoring:
• Responses range from 1 (very rarely or strongly disagree) to 7 (very often or strongly agree).
• Minimum score = 5; Maximum score = 32

Psychometrics:
Source Reference: Weun et al. (1998): 4 studies
Study 1: 212 university students
• Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83
• Unidimensional model
Study 2: 152 respondents of an earlier mall shopping study
• Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86
• Unidimensional model
Study 3: 124 university students
• Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.81
• Validity: convergent, discriminant, nomological (partial support)
• Unidimentional model
Study 4: 550 shoppers at a regional shopping mall
• Validity: predictive of purchases

Utility for Prevalence Surveys:
• Fair

Research Applicability:
• Brief, descriptive measure

Copyright, Cost, and Source Issues:
• Public domain (no cost).

• Scale can be found in the source reference.

 

Source References:
Weun, S., Jones, M. A., & Beatty, S. E. (1998). Development and validation of the impulse buying tendency scale. Psychological Reports, 82, 1123-1133.

Strengths:
• Brief

Weaknesses:
• A more representative sample is needed as university students and people at malls might have a stronger tendency to shop, and therefore not be as representative of the general population.
• Cut-points are not validated.