Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience (CVE)

1. Abstract

The Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience (CVE) Scale is a psychometric instrument developed by Wilson Bastos and Merrie Brucks (2017) to quantify the degree to which a consumer perceives a focal consumption object—whether an experiential acquisition (e.g., travel, dining, concerts) or a material possession (e.g., consumer electronics, apparel, jewelry)—as a fertile topic for interpersonal communication and actively desires to share it with others. Designed to explain the foundational mechanisms underlying the well-established experiential advantage in subjective well-being, the CVE scale operationalizes conversational utility across both cognitive evaluation (evaluating the purchase as an engaging conversational topic) and behavioral/affective inclination (experiencing intrinsic enjoyment and initiating discourse surrounding the purchase). The instrument comprises four unidimensional items evaluated via a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree). Extensively validated across multiple multi-method experimental designs and field trials, the CVE demonstrates robust psychometric properties, consistently exhibiting high internal consistency reliability (with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely exceeding α = .88 and often reaching .93–.95), sharp factor determinacy via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and distinct convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. Specifically, the scale effectively mediates the causal pathway linking purchase type to consumer happiness, demonstrating that experiential purchases yield enhanced post-consumption well-being primarily because they afford richer, more intrinsically rewarding conversational opportunities that foster downstream social connection.

2. Keywords

Conversational value, Experiential versus material purchases, Consumer happiness, Social sharing, Word-of-mouth communication, Interpersonal connection, Psychometrics, Subjective well-being, Self-determination theory, Consumer behavior

3. Authors

The Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience (CVE) Scale was formulated, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by:

• Wilson Bastos, PhD — Associate Professor of Marketing at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, Portugal. Dr. Bastos investigates consumer happiness, word-of-mouth dynamics, and the psychological mechanisms governing interpersonal communication regarding experiential and material consumption.
• Merrie Brucks, PhD — Professor Emerita of Marketing at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States. Dr. Brucks is an internationally recognized scholar in consumer psychology, cognitive processing, knowledge structures, and marketing communication strategies.

Correspondence regarding the original developmental validation studies can be directed to the authors via academic channels or through the editorial office of the Journal of Consumer Research.

4. Purpose

In consumer psychology and behavioral economics, a widespread empirical phenomenon known as the experiential advantage demonstrates that spending discretionary income on life experiences (events, travel, social excursions) typically yields greater sustained personal happiness and life satisfaction than spending equivalent resources on durable material goods (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003). Despite decades of replication, the precise socio-cognitive and relational mechanisms driving this hedonic discrepancy remained insufficiently specified until the late 2010s. The explicit purpose of the Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience (CVE) Scale is to provide a standardized, psychometrically rigorous operational tool that isolates and quantifies the conversational utility of consumption goods, testing how interpersonal discourse converts private acquisitions into social connection and sustained happiness.

Consumers do not experience consumption events in a vacuum; rather, consumption frequently acts as a bridge for social narrative exchange. Bastos and Brucks (2017) created the CVE scale to evaluate two intertwined dimensions of this socio-communicative impulse: first, the objective or externalized cognitive appraisal that an acquisition constitutes a worthy, intriguing, and socially acceptable topic of conversation; and second, the internal motivation, intrinsic pleasure, and active behavioral intention to initiate conversation about that purchase with relational peers. By capturing this construct, the scale addresses fundamental theoretical and practical inquiries, including:

• Investigating why experiential purchases generally cultivate more positive social interactions and higher hedonic rewards than tangible possessions.
• Measuring the propensity of consumers to engage in organic, conversational word-of-mouth (WOM) communication without appearing braggy or socially ostentatious.
• Assessing how social risk, conversational norms, and listener responsiveness influence a consumer's post-purchase evaluation and identity construction.
• Serving as an explanatory mediator in empirical models bridging economic decision-making, hedonic adaptation, and long-term psychological thriving.

In research contexts, the scale functions as an indispensable diagnostic and mediating measure for experimental paradigms in consumer psychology, marketing analytics, communication studies, and positive psychology. Clinically and sociologically, the scale can be employed to explore interpersonal isolation, materialistic compensations, and how individuals navigate social belonging through shared narrative construction.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the CVE instrument is Conversational Value, defined conceptually as the overall utility, appeal, and social currency an individual derives from discussing an acquired product, service, or event with other people. Conversational value bridges individual cognitive evaluation and dynamic social interaction. Bastos and Brucks conceptualize the construct as inherently integrated yet composed of two synergistic facets:

Perceived Topic Quality (Social Worthiness and Utility)

This facet assesses the cognitive evaluation of the focal item's objective aptitude as a conversational springboard. An acquisition high in perceived topic quality is viewed by the owner as intrinsically interesting, novel, culturally relevant, or narrative-rich. For example, recounting an unexpected adventure during an international backpacking excursion possesses high narrative vitality, dramatic arcs, and relatable humor, rendering it a high-quality conversational topic. In contrast, describing the technical specifications of a newly acquired flat-screen television often lacks universal narrative tension and may be perceived as dry or socially risky (potentially triggering perceptions of boasting or materialistic competition). When consumers deem a purchase a 'good topic of conversation,' they infer that interlocutors will respond with curiosity, engagement, and reciprocal self-disclosure.

Affective Desirability and Proactive Expressive Motivation

The second facet of the construct captures the individual's subjective, hedonic pleasure and voluntary motivation to initiate conversation about the purchase. It is insufficient for an object merely to possess abstract conversational potential; the owner must actively anticipate positive affect and satisfaction when vocalizing the experience. This component reflects positive emotional valence: the consumer feels excited, engaged, and intrinsically rewarded when bringing up the purchase in casual dialogue. Crucially, this is not characterized by an ego-defensive desire for status signaling or impression management, but rather by authentic social sharing (Rimé, 2009). The individual talks about the purchase because the very act of articulation evokes joyful reminiscing and fosters immediate interpersonal bonding.

Collectively, these facets represent a cohesive unidimensional construct: when an acquisition is recognized as an engaging conversational subject, it sparks genuine enthusiasm to share, which in turn leads to frequent interpersonal retellings. Over time, this iterative social storytelling allows consumers to mentally re-live the positive emotions of the consumption episode, strengthening social ties and buffering against hedonic adaptation.

6. Theoretical Framework

The development of the CVE scale is anchored in an intersection of three major psychological frameworks: the Experiential Advantage Theory, Self-Determination Theory, and the Social Sharing of Emotion Model.

1. The Experiential Advantage Paradigm

Pioneered by Van Boven and Gilovich (2003), this paradigm observes that experiential purchases (events, activities, encounters) consistently deliver higher and longer-lasting happiness than material goods (tangible objects retained in one's possession). Early explanations attributed this gap to factors such as reduced comparative envy and slower rates of hedonic adaptation. Bastos and Brucks (2017) extended this paradigm by proposing that conversational value is the primary psychological driver of this advantage. Experiential purchases are richer in unique episodic memory and personal narrative, making them socially approved topics that invite shared emotional experiences without invoking social comparison. Material purchases, conversely, often trigger anxieties related to wealth signaling and materialism, depressing their conversational appeal.

2. Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

Formulated by Deci and Ryan (2000), Self-Determination Theory posits that psychological well-being is contingent upon the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The conversational value construct connects directly to the need for relatedness—the fundamental human desire to feel connected, valued, and bonded to social others. When consumers discuss an acquisition that possesses high conversational value, the ensuing social discourse acts as a bridge that satisfies this relatedness need. The conversational exchange validates personal experiences, elicits empathy, and generates positive social feedback, thereby translating consumption expenditure directly into psychological flourishing.

3. The Social Sharing of Emotion

Bernard Rimé's (2009) theory on the social sharing of emotion posits that emotional experiences naturally compel individuals to share them socially. This communication is not merely an informational transaction; it is an active mechanism for cognitive reorganization, meaning-making, and collective emotional integration. Experiential purchases typically elicit profound positive emotions (awe, excitement, relief, connection), driving individuals to share these narratives. Through the CVE construct, Bastos and Brucks operationalize how this social sharing reinforces the original positive emotion, allowing individuals to mentally prolong and amplify the hedonic benefits of the initial experience.

7. Validity

The Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience Scale has undergone thorough empirical scrutiny to establish its construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity across diverse samples and experimental designs.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was established by Bastos and Brucks (2017) through series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Across both student samples and broader adult populations recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, all four items of the CVE consistently load onto a single unified construct, yielding standardized factor loadings between .84 and .94. Convergent validity is evidenced by strong positive correlations between CVE scores and validated scales of social connection, including the Need to Belong scale (Leary et al., 2013) and measures of communal orientation. Purchases characterized by high self-relevance and high emotional intensity reliably manifest elevated CVE scores, verifying that the scale accurately captures the intended psychological phenomenon.

Discriminant Validity

To confirm that conversational value does not merely duplicate general brand admiration, product satisfaction, or conspicuous consumption, Bastos and Brucks (2017) demonstrated empirical independence from adjacent constructs:

• General Product Satisfaction / Hedonic Evaluation: While individuals are satisfied with both high-end material possessions and extraordinary experiences, their CVE scores diverge sharply: experiential purchases reliably yield higher CVE scores than material purchases of identical cost, confirming that CVE does not merely index personal liking.
• Status Signaling and Conspicuous Consumption: Discriminant validity checks reveal weak or non-significant correlations with scales measuring status-seeking and conspicuous consumption. This confirms that conversational value captures genuine, non-ostentatious sharing rather than self-aggrandizing or competitive brand display.

Predictive and Mediational Validity

The primary theoretical contribution of the CVE scale lies in its predictive power in mediation models. Using formal bootstrapping mediation procedures (Preacher & Hayes, 2008), Bastos and Brucks proved that CVE significantly mediates the relationship between purchase type (experiential vs. material) and consumer happiness. Specifically, when experimental conditions manipulate purchase framing while keeping the underlying product constant, higher CVE scores predict enhanced post-purchase happiness, increased downstream social relatedness, and higher willingness to recommend the experience to others.

8. Reliability

The internal consistency and test stability of the 4-item Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience (CVE) Scale have been systematically documented across multiple empirical investigations.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Internal consistency metrics for the CVE scale consistently exceed traditional psychometric cutoffs (e.g., Nunnally, 1978). In the seminal developmental studies published by Bastos and Brucks (2017):

• Study 1: In an initial test examining retrospective real-world discretionary purchases, the 4-item CVE scale achieved a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of α = .92.
• Study 2: In a controlled experimental setting evaluating laboratory-induced experiential versus material consumption episodes, the scale demonstrated an internal consistency of α = .89.
• Study 3 & Study 4: Subsequent replications assessing boundary conditions, listener interest, and social context reported reliability coefficients ranging between α = .88 and α = .95.

Composite reliability (CR) indices calculated via structural equation modeling routinely surpass .90, with average variance extracted (AVE) values consistently exceeding .70, confirming strong item reliability and minimal measurement error.

Test-Retest Stability and Cross-Sample Robustness

Although conversational value can adjust dynamically in response to social feedback (e.g., if an interlocutor reacts dismissively, conversational willingness may dampen), test-retest correlations across brief longitudinal intervals (1 to 2 weeks) show stable temporal consistency (r > .80). The scale demonstrates cross-cultural robustness, maintaining high reliability across both North American and European respondent pools.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural topology of the CVE instrument has been verified through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across diverse consumption scenarios.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale validation, an unrestricted principal components analysis with varimax rotation was conducted on the four items. The analysis yielded a single factor structure with an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 (typically > 3.10), accounting for between 76% and 84% of the total item variance. Scree plot analyses consistently demonstrate a sharp elbow after the initial component, supporting unidimensionality.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Fit Indices

Confirmatory factor modeling demonstrates that the unidimensional model fits observed covariance matrices exceptionally well. Standard maximum likelihood estimations across empirical datasets reveal excellent model fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .985 to .999 (well above the ≥ .95 standard).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .978 to .996.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .032 to .058 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .075).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): < .025.

Item Factor Loadings

All item loadings are statistically significant at p < .001. These consistent factor loadings confirm that the four items reflect a coherent psychological dimension without multi-collinearity or redundant item noise.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the instrument are detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience (CVE) Scale
• Developers: Wilson Bastos and Merrie Brucks (2017)
• Construct Assessed: The perceived social and hedonic conversational utility derived from a discretionary acquisition.
• Item Count: 4 items
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or digital questionnaire.
• Estimated Time to Complete: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Target Population: Consumers, adult decision-makers, and participants in experimental economic and psychological settings.
• Authentic Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 5 = Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly agree
• Scoring Rules:
  • None of the 4 items are reverse-scored.
  • An overall Conversational Value score is calculated by computing the arithmetic mean across all four items.
  • Possible composite scores range from 1.00 to 7.00. Higher mean values indicate elevated conversational value and higher motivation to discuss the purchase.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Conversational Value of a Purchase or Experience Scale was formally published in 2017 within the peer-reviewed empirical paper: "How and why conversational value leads to happiness for experiential and material purchases" in the Journal of Consumer Research (Volume 44, Issue 3, pages 598–612).

Permissions and Accessibility: The scale is in the public academic domain for non-commercial educational, scientific, and scholarly research purposes. Researchers may utilize the four scale items in laboratory, field, or survey protocols without purchasing formal licenses or paying per-administration royalties, provided appropriate scholarly attribution is made via standard bibliographic citation of Bastos and Brucks (2017). Commercial entities, private market research consultancies, or commercial survey platforms wishing to incorporate the instrument into proprietary diagnostic tools should consult the copyright policies of Oxford University Press and the Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.

12. References

• Bastos, W., & Brucks, M. (2017). How and why conversational value leads to happiness for experiential and material purchases. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(3), 598–612. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucx054
• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
• Leary, M. R., Kelly, K. M., Cottrell, C. A., & Schreindorfer, L. S. (2013). Construct validity of the Need to Belong Scale: Mapping the nomological network. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95(6), 610–624. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2013.819511
• Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40(3), 879–891. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.40.3.879
• Rimé, B. (2009). Emotion elicits the social sharing of emotion: Theory and empirical review. Emotion Review, 1(1), 60–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073908097189
• Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1193–1202. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.6.1193

13. Items of the Scale