The Construction and Validation of a Consumer Orientation Questionnaire (SCOI) Designed to Measure Fromm’s (1955) >Marketing Character< in Australia

The Saunders Consumer Orientation Instrument was designed to measure Fromm’s (1955) marketing character, which is based on the notion that the self may be experienced as a commodity whose value and meaning are externally determined. In study 1 ( N = 80 and 302), the hypothesis that the SCOI would be positively correlated with conformity, authoritarianism and anger expression was supported, providing support for Fromm’s (1955) theory that these latter three traits would be evident in those individuals defined by the marketing character. The hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism (Richins & Dawson, 1992) would be positively correlated with both Commercial Television Viewing and Anxiety were also supported. In study 2 ( N = 87), the hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism would be positively correlated with depression and negatively correlated with voluntary simplicity were supported. The hypothesis that the SCOI would be negatively correlated with life satisfaction was not supported, although materialism was significantly and negatively correlated with life satisfaction. In study 3 ( N = 80), the hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism would be negatively correlated with empathy and neuroticism were not supported, the latter result suggesting that neuroticism may not be an adequate indicator of psychological health per se. In study 4 ( N = 101), the hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism would be negatively correlated with biophilia and environmentalism were also supported. Further, the SCOI was able to discriminate both between Ss from Newcastle, NSW (1 of 2 preferred test markets in Australia) and S s from a permaculture community in southeast Queensland, Australia, and between S s enrolled in management and S s enrolled in arts/science at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Hence, the SCOI generally performed as expected in tests of convergent, divergent and discriminant validity.

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