Brief Description:
• Verplanken and Herabadi (2001)
• Views buying as impulse-control
• Scale includes questions on both affective (focus on urge to buy, excitement and lack of control) and cognitive aspects (lack of planning and deliberation in making purchasing decisions) of impulse buying tendency
• Verplanken proposes that impulsive buying is linked to negative psychological states
• Questions on scale were compared to the Big 5 personality traits as many authors have posited that impulse tendency has a strong personality basis.
• The 52 original items included ones from scales created by Beatty & Ferrell (1998) and Rook & Fisher (1995).
Type of Measure:
• Administered questionnaire
• Twenty items (originally 52): 10 items on affective aspects and 10 on cognitive
• Seven point scale
Target Population:
• Adults
Scoring:
• 1=agree; 7 = disagree
Psychometrics:
Source Reference: Verplanken & Herabadi: 2 studies
Study 1: 106 Dutch university students from the University of Nijmegen, in The Netherlands
• Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86; Coefficient alpha 0.87 for complete 20-item scale
• Validity: Predictive - Correlation between the impulse buying tendency scale and participant purchasing frequencies of impulse products (r = 0.32) and a correlations between impulse buying tendency scale and the action-orientation scale (r = 0.28).
• Negative affect associated with both subscales
• Two-factor model
Study 2: Convenience sample of 125 people from Tromso, Norway: local civil servants, travellers at the airport and University students
• Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87
• Validity: Predictive- correlated with participant purchasing frequencies of impulse products (r = 0.25); also correlated with extraversion (r = 0.37), conscientiousness (r = -0.39) and autonomy (r = -0.20). Construct validity: Silvera et al. (2008) found that when other predictive factors (E.g., self-esteem, social influence, and subject wellbeing), negative affect is no longer significantly related to the cognitive side of the Impulsive Buying Tendency Scale.
• Two-factor model
Utility for Prevalence Surveys:
• Fair
Research Applicability:
• Understanding buying behaviors as personality driven may lead us to a better understanding of who and why one becomes a compulsive buyer.
Copyright, Cost, and Source Issues:
• Public domain (no cost) – scale is found in source reference
Source References:
Verplanken, B., & Herabadi, A. (2001). Individual differences in impulse buying tendency: Feeling and no thinking. European Journal of Personality, 15, S71-S83.
Supporting References:
Silvera, D. H., Lavack, A. M., & Kropp, F. (2008). Impulse buying: The role of affect, social influence, and subjective wellbeing. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 35(1), 23-33.
Strengths:
• Conceptual model