Advertising Scepticism Scale (SKEP)

1. Abstract

The Advertising Scepticism Scale (SKEP), developed by Carl Obermiller and Eric R. Spangenberg in 1998, is a widely utilized psychometric instrument designed to assess a consumer’s generalized tendency toward disbelief of advertising claims. Conceptualized as a stable, dispositional trait rather than a transient state or skepticism directed toward a specific commercial or brand, the SKEP captures an individual’s enduring orientation toward marketing communications across diverse product categories and media channels. The instrument comprises 9 items assessed via a standard 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Psychometrically, the SKEP is characterized by a unidimensional factor structure, demonstrating strong internal consistency across student, adult, and cross-cultural cohorts with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding .85 and frequently reaching .92. Test-retest reliability across multiple intervals has affirmed the temporal stability of the underlying construct. Construct, convergent, discriminant, nomological, and predictive validities have been extensively corroborated: higher SKEP scores are robustly associated with diminished ad credibility, reduced informational reliance on promotional communications, greater cognitive elaboration during ad exposure, elevated activation of persuasion knowledge, and a preference for objective, third-party product ratings (such as Consumer Reports) over commercial assertions. As marketing ecosystems have expanded into digital, algorithmic, and influencer-mediated spheres, the SKEP remains a foundational metric within consumer psychology, behavioral economics, media literacy, and public policy research.

2. Keywords

Advertising Scepticism Scale, SKEP, consumer skepticism, advertising disbelief, Persuasion Knowledge Model, ad credibility, consumer cynicism, marketing communications, Carl Obermiller, Eric Spangenberg, consumer psychology, scale validation

3. Authors

The scale was developed and psychometrically validated by:

• Carl Obermiller, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University, Seattle, Washington, United States. Dr. Obermiller’s research focuses on consumer information processing, skepticism toward promotional messages, sustainability marketing, and socially responsible consumer behavior.
• Eric R. Spangenberg, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing and Psychological Science, former Dean of the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, and former Dean of the Carson College of Business at Washington State University, United States. Dr. Spangenberg is an internationally recognized expert in sensory marketing, consumer behavior, psychometrics, and questionable question-behavior effects.

Correspondence regarding the original development of the scale was anchored at the Department of Marketing, Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University, and the Department of Marketing, College of Business and Economics, Washington State University.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Advertising Scepticism Scale (SKEP) is to operationalize and quantify an individual’s generalized, enduring tendency to disbelieve the informational claims made in commercial advertising. Prior to the introduction of the SKEP by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998), empirical research in marketing and communication frequently conflated generalized skepticism with specific ad attitudes (attitude toward the ad, or A_ad), general cynicism toward institutions, public cynicism toward corporations, or situational disbelief elicited by misleading product claims. The SKEP was developed to delineate a clear boundary around dispositional disbelief focused specifically on advertising as a distinct societal institution.

In academic research, the instrument serves several critical functions:

• Testing Information Processing Models: The SKEP enables researchers to investigate how baseline cognitive skepticism moderates the effects of source credibility, argument quality, peripheral cues, and affective appeals within dual-process frameworks such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM).
• Persuasion Knowledge Activation: The scale allows scholars to assess individual differences in the chronic accessibility of consumer persuasion coping strategies, exploring how individuals identify marketer motives and resist persuasive attempts.
• Media and Consumer Literacy Evaluation: Educational and public health researchers utilize the SKEP to measure baseline and post-intervention shifts in critical thinking among adolescents and adults exposed to consumer literacy curricula, tobacco or alcohol counter-advertising, and deceptive marketing.
• Market Segmentation and Commercial Analysis: Market researchers apply the SKEP to segment consumer populations based on trust profiles, identifying cohorts that discount promotional messaging and require alternative communication strategies, such as transparent third-party certifications, user-generated content, or educational content marketing.
• Public Policy and Regulatory Research: Regulatory bodies and consumer protection organizations deploy the SKEP to assess public vulnerability to deceptive advertising, establishing benchmarks for reasonable consumer interpretation versus structural cynicism.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the SKEP is defined by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998) as “the tendency toward disbelief of advertising claims.” To fully comprehend the nature of this construct, several conceptual distinctions must be delineated:

5.1. Dispositional Trait vs. Situational State

Skepticism toward advertising is conceptualized as a chronic, stable individual difference variable. While situational skepticism may arise in response to a particularly exaggerated claim, an untrustworthy spokesperson, or an implausible product benefit, dispositional skepticism represents a pervasive cognitive filter. High-skepticism consumers approach promotional messages with an a priori expectation that the assertions are partial, exaggerated, or misleading, regardless of the product class or media channel.

5.2. Skepticism vs. Cynicism

A critical theoretical distinction exists between skepticism and cynicism. Whereas cynicism involves a generalized, disparaging worldview regarding human nature, institutions, and moral integrity (often carrying an affective and fatalistic tone), skepticism is narrower, cognitive, and epistemological. An individual who is skeptical of advertising does not necessarily harbor misanthropic beliefs about society at large; rather, they question the informational validity of assertions made by agents with explicit economic incentives to persuade. Skeptics remain open to evidence, actively seeking objective corroboration, whereas cynics fundamentally reject motives wholesale.

5.3. Skepticism vs. Generalized Distrust

The construct is domain-specific to commercial advertising. It is distinct from interpersonal trust, political alienation, or generalized institutional skepticism. A consumer may exhibit high advertising skepticism while displaying high trust in medical professionals, peer recommendations, independent testing agencies, or academic research.

5.4. Informational Focus

The SKEP construct focuses specifically on the informational claims embedded within advertisements. It does not measure whether consumers find advertising entertaining, aesthetic, annoying, or culturally pervasive. The core cognitive evaluation revolves around truth value, reliability, and utility: Is the message an accurate depiction of product performance, or is it an instrument of partial truth engineered to induce consumption?

6. Theoretical Framework

The Advertising Scepticism Scale is embedded within several established frameworks of social cognition, persuasion, and consumer psychology:

6.1. The Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM)

Formulated by Friestad and Wright (1994), the Persuasion Knowledge Model posits that over their lifetimes, consumers develop personal knowledge regarding the tactics, motives, and goals of persuasion agents. This “persuasion knowledge” enables individuals to recognize when an attempt at persuasion is occurring and to deploy coping mechanisms to manage the interaction. The SKEP captures an internalized, chronically accessible component of persuasion knowledge: the belief that the structural goal of advertising (profit generation through persuasion) conflicts with objective truth-telling. Consumers high in SKEP maintain chronically activated persuasion knowledge, causing them to automatically attribute ad claims to the seller’s commercial intent rather than to an altruistic desire to inform.

6.2. Dual-Process Theories of Information Processing

Within the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), high skepticism operates as a motivational driver influencing the route to persuasion. High-SKEP individuals are less susceptible to simple peripheral cues (e.g., attractive models, pleasant music, prestige branding) when evaluating truth claims. When processing ad information, they engage in more critical, deliberative cognitive elaboration, actively generating counterarguments. Conversely, if cognitive resources or motivation are low, high-SKEP consumers apply a simple heuristic: “If it is an advertisement, it is probably untrue.”

6.3. Attribution Theory

Rooted in Kelley’s attribution theory (1973), consumer responses to advertising depend on whether claims are attributed to product reality (entity attribution) or to the marketer’s desire to sell the product (situational/ulterior attribution). SKEP operationalizes an individual’s baseline disposition to assign discount-inducing ulterior attributions to advertising claims before processing the specific arguments presented.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the SKEP was extensively examined during its initial construction across four distinct multi-sample studies by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998) and has been reaffirmed by dozens of subsequent investigations across global contexts.

7.1. Construct and Content Validity

Item generation began with an initial pool of over 60 candidate items derived from literature reviews, expert panels, and focus group interviews reflecting varied dimensions of advertising perceptions. Iterative exploratory factor analyses, expert screening for face validity, and purification procedures reduced the pool to the definitive 9-item unidimensional scale. The items cleanly reflect consumer evaluations of truth, informativeness, and informational reliability.

7.2. Convergent Validity

The SKEP exhibits strong, statistically significant convergent validity when evaluated alongside related constructs:

• Ad Credibility: SKEP correlates negatively and robustly with measures of ad credibility (typically r = -.55 to -.70).
• Attitude Toward Advertising in General (ASTA): SKEP shows substantial negative correlations with general valence toward the advertising industry (r = -.50 to -.65).
• Persuasion Knowledge Activation: SKEP scores correlate positively with measures of persuasion coping behaviors, suspicion of marketer motives, and sales tactic awareness (r = .40 to .58).

7.3. Discriminant Validity

Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998) demonstrated that the SKEP is empirically distinct from broader personality and social constructs:

• Generalized Cynicism: While correlated, the correlation between SKEP and Kanter and Mirvis’s Generalized Cynicism Scale is moderate (r ≈ .30 to .38), confirming that advertising skepticism is not merely generalized cynicism.
• Interpersonal Trust: Correlations with Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale are modest (r = -.20 to -.28), indicating that disbelief in commercial advertising claims does not imply distrust in interpersonal relationships.
• Self-Esteem and Locus of Control: Negligible correlations (r < .15) confirm independence from global personality and control orientations.

7.4. Nomological and Predictive Validity

Nomological validity has been demonstrated through behavioral and experimental paradigms:

• Information Search Behavior: High-SKEP consumers exhibit significantly greater reliance on objective, third-party product reviews (e.g., Consumer Reports, independent laboratory test results) and peer-to-peer word-of-mouth, while avoiding reliance on marketer-controlled channels.
• Claim Recall and Counterarguing: In experimental ad-exposure paradigms, individuals scoring high on the SKEP generate significantly higher ratios of counterarguments to support arguments when exposed to both objective and subjective advertising claims.
• Purchase Intentions: SKEP directly dampens the standard positive path between ad exposure and purchase intention, serving as a critical negative moderator of promotional efficacy.

8. Reliability

The Advertising Scepticism Scale demonstrates exceptional reliability across diverse demographic groups, academic settings, and international consumer markets.

8.1. Internal Consistency

In the original validation studies conducted by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998):

• Sample 1 (Undergraduate students, N = 205): Cronbach’s α = .85.
• Sample 2 (Non-student adult consumers, N = 188): Cronbach’s α = .86.
• Sample 3 (Multi-ad laboratory test sample, N = 172): Cronbach’s α = .89.
• Sample 4 (Cross-validation field sample, N = 310): Cronbach’s α = .92.

Subsequent literature spanning over two decades has consistently reported internal consistency values between .84 and .93, reflecting stable item-total correlations across items ranging predominantly from .52 to .78.

8.2. Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

To establish that the SKEP measures an enduring disposition rather than transient affect, Obermiller and Spangenberg administered the scale across a four-week interval to a cohort of 68 respondents. The resulting test-retest reliability coefficient was r = .78 (p < .001). Extended test-retest evaluations over 6- to 12-week intervals have yielded stability coefficients between .72 and .81, confirming adequate temporal consistency for dispositional psychometric profiling.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the SKEP was established through rigorous exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

9.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale purification, principal components analysis and common factor analysis with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations were performed on candidate pools. Across all test administrations, a clear unidimensional factor structure emerged:

• Eigenvalues: A dominant first factor with eigenvalues consistently exceeding 4.0 (often accounting for 48% to 58% of the total variance) was observed, with scree plots displaying a sharp break after the initial factor. Subsequent factors yielded eigenvalues well below 1.0.
• Factor Loadings: All 9 items demonstrated strong standardized factor loadings on this single latent construct, ranging from .58 to .84. Cross-loadings on secondary exploratory components were non-existent or statistically negligible.

9.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent structural evaluations in diverse consumer populations have confirmed the adequacy of the single-factor model. Typical goodness-of-fit indices reported in modern psychometric re-evaluations include:

• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom: χ²/df ≤ 2.45
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .95 to .98
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .94 to .97
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .042 to .065 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .028 to .074)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .031 to .048

Alternative multi-factor formulations (e.g., separating “informativeness” from “truthfulness”) have failed to produce statistically superior fit or conceptual utility, establishing the unidimensional 9-item structure as the psychometric benchmark.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The technical parameters and administration protocol for the Advertising Scepticism Scale are structured as follows:

• Instrument Type: Self-administered psychometric questionnaire / dispositional rating scale.
• Format: Pen-and-paper, online survey engine, or computerized testing interface.
• Number of Items: 9 items.
• Administration Time: Approximately 2 to 4 minutes.
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (reading comprehension level: 8th grade or higher).
• Response Format: 5-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree (Neutral)
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Protocol:
  • The scale is scored such that higher scores reflect greater skepticism toward advertising.
  • Because the items are predominantly framed as positive statements regarding the truthfulness, reliability, and utility of advertising (e.g., “We can depend on getting the truth in most advertising”), items expressing belief in advertising (Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) must be reverse-scored prior to computation (i.e., 1 = 5, 2 = 4, 3 = 3, 4 = 2, 5 = 1).
  • Items framed skeptically (or items reflecting consumer realization of deception/inaccuracy, depending on the operationalized edition, such as Items 8 and 9) are scored directly. When using the original 9 items where items 1 through 7 and 9 reflect trust/accuracy and item 8 reflects reliance, all positive belief items are reversed so that high values indicate disbelief.
  • An overall SKEP index is computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of all 9 items (yielding a score range of 1.00 to 5.00) or by calculating the cumulative sum (yielding a score range of 9 to 45).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Advertising Scepticism Scale was published in 1998 in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Under standard fair-use conventions for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical evaluation, and scientific inquiry, the scale is freely accessible and may be reproduced and administered without licensing fees, provided proper bibliographic citation is given to Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998). Commercial research organizations, corporate market testing firms, or software platforms integrating the SKEP into proprietary diagnostic assessment suites should review copyright policies associated with the original journal publisher (Society for Consumer Psychology / John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) or contact the scale authors directly to secure formal permissions.

12. References

• Boush, D. M., Friestad, M., & Rose, G. M. (1994). Adolescent skepticism toward TV advertising and knowledge of advertiser tactics. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(1), 165–175. https://doi.org/10.1086/209390
• Diehl, S., Mueller, B., & Terlutter, R. (2007). The impact of culture on consumer skepticism toward advertising: A cross-cultural study of German and US consumers. International Journal of Advertising, 26(4), 533–556. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2007.11073032
• Friestad, M., & Wright, P. (1994). The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How people cope with persuasion attempts. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1086/209380
• Hardesty, D. M., Carlson, J. P., & Bearden, W. O. (2002). Brand familiarity and invoice price effects on consumer evaluations: The moderating role of skepticism toward advertising. Journal of Retailing, 78(2), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(02)00071-4
• Kelley, H. H. (1973). The processes of causal attribution. American Psychologist, 28(2), 107–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034225
• Obermiller, C., & Spangenberg, E. R. (1998). Development of a scale to measure consumer skepticism toward advertising. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 7(2), 159–186. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp0702_03
• Obermiller, C., & Spangenberg, E. R. (2000). On the origin and utility of skepticism toward advertising. In S. Hoch & R. Meyer (Eds.), NA – Advances in Consumer Research Volume 27 (pp. 314–319). Association for Consumer Research.
• Obermiller, C., Spangenberg, E., & MacLachlan, D. L. (2005). Ad skepticism: The consequences of disbelief. Journal of Advertising, 34(3), 7–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2005.10639199
• Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2

13. Items of the Scale