Creative Atmosphere Scale

1. Abstract

The Creative Atmosphere Scale (CA Scale), conceptualized and empirically validated by Cheng and Chen (2023), is an established 23-item psychometric instrument developed to evaluate consumer perceptions of creative climate within creative tourism and experiential leisure destinations. Rooted in environmental psychology and experience economy frameworks, the scale quantifies the environmental, sensory, and affective cues that define a destination’s perceived creative ambiance. The instrument was developed using a rigorous mixed-methods psychometric workflow that initiated with in-depth semi-structured interviews and inductive content analysis, yielding an initial item pool of 324 experiential descriptors. Through successive iterations of domain categorization across eight primary qualitative facets (novelty, uniqueness, aesthetics, relevance, pleasure, feeling, hedonism, and authenticity) and mapping against four systemic destination touchpoints (products, environment, activities, and people), an initial draft of 36 items was established and refined to 31 items following rigorous content validity index (CVI) assessments by expert panels.

Empirical cross-validation was conducted across adult visitor samples at three prominent creative tourism destinations in Taiwan. Psychometric reduction through item-total correlation thresholds, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) consolidated a robust 5-factor first-order latent architecture encompassing 23 manifest items: Novel Atmosphere, Distinctive Atmosphere, Artistic Atmosphere, Hedonic Atmosphere, and Joyful Atmosphere. The scale demonstrates high internal consistency, with Composite Reliability (CR) values across all five latent factors ranging from 0.80 to 0.89 and Squared Multiple Correlations (SMC) demonstrating substantial item explanatory power. Convergent validity is evidenced by Average Variance Extracted (AVE) estimates between 0.65 and 0.86, while discriminant validity satisfies the stringent Fornell–Larcker criterion. Furthermore, multi-group invariance tests established metric, scalar, and structural equivalence across distinct visitor subgroups. Criterion-related validity was confirmed via significant positive correlations with tourists’ revisit intentions (r = 0.532 to 0.707, p < .001). The CA Scale serves as a robust operational measure for organizational researchers, destination marketers, and environmental psychologists examining tourist behavior, place branding, and service design.

2. Keywords

Creative Atmosphere Scale, Creative Tourism, Environmental Psychology, Servicescape, Destination Creativity, Psychometrics, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling, Hedonic Experience, Tourist Behavior

3. Authors

The Creative Atmosphere Scale was designed and validated by psychometric and tourism management scholars based in Taiwan:

• Tien-Ming Cheng, Ph.D. — Department of Tourism and Leisure Management, National Chiayi University, Chiayi, Taiwan. (Email: [email protected]). Correspondence author.
• Mei-Tsun Chen, Ph.D. — Department of Recreation and Sports Management, Shu-Te University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. (Email: [email protected]).

4. Purpose

The modern experience economy has fundamentally shifted tourism consumption from passive sightseeing toward co-creative, participatory engagement. Although the concept of creative tourism has proliferated globally since its initial formulation by Greg Richards and Crispin Raymond in 2000, empirical measurement of the contextual atmosphere that sparks, supports, and sustains personal creativity has long suffered from conceptual ambiguity and measurement fragmentation. Destination managers and researchers routinely lacked a standardized, psychometrically validated scale dedicated to isolating how tourists cognitively perceive and affectively respond to a destination’s ambient creative properties.

The overarching purpose of the Creative Atmosphere Scale is to resolve this operational deficit by providing a scientifically grounded diagnostic instrument that quantifies the multi-sensory, social, and physical cues contributing to a destination’s holistic “creative climate.” Specifically, the scale was engineered to:

• Systematically capture the holistic perceptual ecosystem through which visitors process environmental stimuli across physical settings, artistic products, social co-presence, and interactive activities.
• Delineate the cognitive boundaries between standard sensory attractiveness (general aesthetics) and distinctively creative cues that trigger feelings of inspiration, wonder, novelty, and playfulness.
• Provide empirical researchers with a standardized structural equation modeling (SEM) measurement model capable of evaluating complex hypotheses linking destination attributes to visitor satisfaction, place attachment, positive word-of-mouth, and behavioral revisit intentions.
• Supply destination planners, heritage site managers, and creative park operators with actionable, granular diagnostic metrics to identify underperforming sensory and atmospheric touchpoints, optimize physical servicescapes, and justify capital investments in creative programming.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct of “Creative Atmosphere” within the CA Scale is conceptualized as an environmental-experiential meta-construct. Rather than treating creativity purely as an individual trait (cognitive divergent thinking) or as an isolated objective product (an artistic artifact), the scale treats creative atmosphere as an ecological field: a transactional, perceptually mediated climate generated at the interface between the visitor’s internal psychological apparatus and the multi-layered environmental stimuli of the tourism destination.

During the inductive qualitative phase, Cheng and Chen (2023) identified eight core thematic dimensions underlying visitor perceptions, which interactively coalesce across four objective destination domains (products, physical environments, participatory activities, and human interpersonal agents). Subsequent structural equation modeling and factor extraction distilled these theoretical aspects into five salient, correlated first-order latent dimensions:

1. Novel Atmosphere

The Novel Atmosphere dimension captures the cognitive appraisal of original, unconventional, and unexpected environmental and structural stimuli. Grounded in psychological theories of curiosity and exploratory behavior, this subscale measures the extent to which the spatial and functional arrangements diverge from mundane everyday routines. It reflects the tourist’s realization that the site breaks traditional conventions through inventive design, unorthodox presentation, and forward-looking concepts that provoke cognitive shifts.

2. Distinctive Atmosphere

While novelty emphasizes original difference from the visitor’s baseline expectations, the Distinctive Atmosphere dimension reflects the localized, inimitable identity of the setting. It addresses place-based authenticity, cultural specificity, and unique thematic coherence. Visitors experiencing high distinctiveness identify clear spatial character and exclusive environmental signatures that cannot be replicated by alternative leisure environments, fostering perceptual salience and deep contextual immersion.

3. Artistic Atmosphere

The Artistic Atmosphere dimension quantifies the perceptual presence of aesthetic sensibility, craftsmanship, cultural cultivation, and refined spatial design. Drawing directly from environmental aesthetics, this factor measures how the integration of artistic elements—such as visual harmonies, tactile materials, spatial proportions, and expressive lighting—elevates the site from a commercial venue into a resonant sensory space that stimulates appreciation of art, cultural expression, and intellectual reflection.

4. Hedonic Atmosphere

Rooted in theories of intrinsic motivation and affective pleasure, the Hedonic Atmosphere dimension evaluates the destination’s capacity to induce positive emotional states, leisure enjoyment, indulgence, and restorative psychological detachment. This dimension assesses ambient features that make the environment inherently pleasurable, relaxing, and gratifying, satisfying basic psychological needs for stress recovery and emotional well-being.

5. Joyful Atmosphere

Distinct from generalized hedonic contentment, the Joyful Atmosphere dimension assesses active, high-arousal positive affect, playfulness, excitement, and vibrant social contagion. It captures the communicative energy generated by interpersonal interactions, interactive workshops, dynamic programming, and shared visitor delight. It evaluates whether the atmosphere feels lively, spirited, and capable of generating spontaneous laughter, personal validation, and expressive freedom.

6. Theoretical Framework

The psychometric architecture of the Creative Atmosphere Scale is anchored within three complementary theoretical paradigms: the Mehrabian–Russell Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) Model, Bitner’s Servicescape Framework, and Amabile’s Componential Theory of Creativity.

The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) Paradigm

Originally formulated by Albert Mehrabian and James A. Russell (1974), the S-O-R model posits that environmental cues act as external stimuli (S) that alter an individual’s internal emotional and cognitive organismic state (O), which in turn governs subsequent approach or avoidance behavioral responses (R). Within the theoretical framework of the CA Scale, the multi-faceted destination attributes (physical layouts, sensory designs, interactive programming, interpersonal staff demeanor) serve as complex stimuli. These ambient cues trigger internal cognitive-affective appraisals—perceptions of novelty, distinctiveness, artistry, hedonism, and joy. These organismic states systematically shape downstream behavioral approach responses, such as prolonged dwell time, deep engagement in co-creation, positive word-of-mouth recommendations, and intention to revisit.

Bitner’s Servicescape and Experience Economy Extensions

Mary Jo Bitner’s (1992) Servicescape framework expanded environmental psychology into service organizations by categorizing physical surroundings into ambient conditions, spatial layout/functionality, and signs, symbols, and artifacts. In the context of creative tourism, Pine and Gilmore’s (1998) Experience Economy posits that high-value consumer exchanges occur when settings engage the four realms of experience: educational, escapist, esthetic, and entertainment. The CA Scale synthesizes these paradigms by demonstrating that a creative servicescape transcends sterile functional utilities; it functions as an active platform where physical cues (artistic features, novel architectural artifacts) and social parameters (interactive joy, shared enthusiasm) coalesce into a cohesive experiential canvas.

Amabile’s Componential Theory and Environmental Press

Teresa Amabile’s (1983, 1996) Componential Theory of Creativity asserts that creative behavior and appreciation do not occur in a vacuum; they depend heavily on the “work environment” or ecological press. Environmental conditions that provide autonomy, excitement, resource richness, and aesthetic stimulation unlock intrinsic motivation and creative processing. The CA Scale operationalizes this ecological press for leisure settings, verifying that when an environment exudes playfulness, distinctiveness, and artistic intentionality, it lowers psychological defenses and encourages visitors to participate actively in co-creative leisure practices.

7. Validity

The psychometric evaluation of the Creative Atmosphere Scale by Cheng and Chen (2023) established evidence of content, construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity through multi-stage field implementations.

Content and Face Validity

Content validity was established using a comprehensive multi-stage inductive-deductive protocol:

• An initial qualitative exploration involving in-depth interviews with diverse creative tourists yielded 324 narrative statements capturing environmental impressions.
• Content analysis condensed these statements into eight qualitative dimensions, mapped against a four-domain matrix (products, environment, activities, people) identified from the extant tourism literature, generating an initial instrument of 36 items.
• An expert panel of psychometricians, tourism management professors, and industry practitioners evaluated item clarity, semantic appropriateness, and domain representativeness, reducing the draft to 31 items prior to field administration.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Construct validity of the refined 23-item structural model was tested via Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using Maximum Likelihood estimation:

• Convergent Validity: All standardized factor loadings were statistically significant (p < .001) and ranged from 0.58 to 0.85, exceeding standard heuristic thresholds. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the five latent constructs ranged between 0.65 and 0.86, substantially exceeding the recommended benchmark of 0.50 established by Fornell and Larcker (1981). This confirms that the latent constructs account for the majority of the variance in their respective indicator subsets.
• Discriminant Validity: According to the Fornell–Larcker criterion, discriminant validity is substantiated if the square root of the AVE for each latent factor exceeds the inter-construct correlation between that factor and any other factor. For the CA Scale, the lowest square root of the AVE among all five factors was 0.78, while the highest observed bivariate correlation between any two latent constructs was 0.72. Because the square root of every construct’s AVE surpassed the maximum inter-factor correlation, discriminant validity was demonstrated.

Criterion-Related Validity

To establish concurrent and predictive criterion-related validity, tourist revisit willingness was selected as an external behavioral criterion. Pearson bivariate correlation analyses demonstrated that the composite Creative Atmosphere construct and its five constituent factors were all positively, strongly, and significantly correlated with revisit intention:

• Correlation coefficients across individual subscales and revisit willingness ranged from r = 0.532 to r = 0.707 (p < .001).
• These empirical findings confirm that an elevated creative atmosphere directly predicts tourists’ behavioral commitment to return to the destination.

Cross-Validation and Measurement Invariance

To verify that the scale performs consistently across varying populations, multi-group confirmatory nested models were tested across distinct respondent demographic subsets. Testing sequential models of invariance (configural, metric, scalar, structural covariance, and residual error invariance), the chi-square difference tests yielded non-significant changes (Δχ² p > .05 across all model comparisons). This confirms that measurement weights, intercepts, structural covariances, and residuals remain invariant, allowing researchers to validly compare creative atmosphere scores across demographic and contextual tourist groups.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Creative Atmosphere Scale was evaluated using multiple complementary psychometric parameters to assess internal consistency and item explanatory power:

Composite Reliability (CR)

While Cronbach’s alpha is traditionally reported, it frequently assumes tau-equivalence (equal factor loadings across all items) and can underestimate true scale reliability. Consequently, Cheng and Chen (2023) computed Composite Reliability (CR) values based on structural factor loadings:

• The CR coefficients for the five latent factors of the CA Scale ranged from 0.80 to 0.89.
• Because all values surpass the standard psychometric threshold of 0.70 (and the stringent threshold of 0.80 for advanced applied testing), the scale displays internal consistency across all latent dimensions.

Squared Multiple Correlations (SMC)

The Squared Multiple Correlation (SMC or R²) indicates the proportion of an observed item’s variance that is explained by its underlying latent construct:

• Following criteria outlined by Bagozzi and Baumgartner (1994), SMC values should ideally exceed 0.30 or 0.50 to reflect satisfactory item-level reliability.
• All 23 retained measurement items demonstrated SMC values well above established critical cutoffs, indicating that the manifest indicators reliably capture their target latent dimensions with minimal residual measurement error.

Item-Total Correlations

During the initial item screening phase, item-to-total correlations were calculated in accordance with Churchill’s (1979) scale development paradigm. Eight candidate items exhibiting corrected item-total correlations below the standard 0.30 cutoff were systematically eliminated, ensuring that all 23 items retained in the final instrument share strong, statistically verified common variance with the overarching scale.

9. Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the Creative Atmosphere Scale was delineated using a two-stage sequential factor analytic strategy combining Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for structural discovery and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for hypothesis-driven structural verification.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

An exploratory factor analysis using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with orthogonal Varimax rotation (Gable & Wolf, 1993) was performed on the preliminary 31-item pool using an initial calibration sample of adult creative tourists in Taiwan:

• Item retention criteria required factor loadings ≥ 0.50, cross-loadings < 0.35, and eigenvalues > 1.0.
• Items displaying weak communalities or conceptual redundancy were trimmed, removing eight problematic items.
• The terminal EFA on the remaining 23 items extracted a clear 5-factor structure that accounted for 61.82% of the total cumulative variance.
• The extracted factors cleanly corresponded to: Factor 1 (Novel Atmosphere), Factor 2 (Distinctive Atmosphere), Factor 3 (Artistic Atmosphere), Factor 4 (Hedonic Atmosphere), and Factor 5 (Joyful Atmosphere).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm the empirical factor structure derived from the EFA, a second-stage Confirmatory Factor Analysis using Maximum Likelihood estimation was conducted on an independent validation sample:

• Factor Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across all 23 items ranged from 0.58 to 0.85, all achieving statistical significance at p < .001.
• Model Fit Indices: The 5-factor measurement model demonstrated an acceptable fit to the empirical data. Fit metrics complied with recognized structural modeling conventions: χ²/df ratio fell within the recommended range of < 3.0; the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) satisfied acceptable boundaries (< 0.08); and incremental fit measures such as the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI) exceeded standard acceptable thresholds (> 0.90).
• Higher-Order Invariance: Testing confirmed that the five first-order latent constructs load coherently onto an overarching, second-order general Creative Atmosphere construct, substantiating both individual subscale diagnostic utility and composite score calculations.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Standardized Psychometric Self-Report Questionnaire / Multi-Dimensional Rating Scale.
• Target Population: Adult consumers, leisure travelers, cultural tourists, and experiential visitors (aged 18 years and older).
• Item Count: 23 manifest items distributed across 5 first-order dimensions: Novel Atmosphere, Distinctive Atmosphere, Artistic Atmosphere, Hedonic Atmosphere, and Joyful Atmosphere.
• Response Format: 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neutral (Neither Agree nor Disagree)
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Administration Mode: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/mobile survey; average completion time is 5 to 8 minutes.
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Dimension Sub-scores: Calculated by averaging the numerical responses of the items assigned to each respective factor (yielding mean subscale scores from 1.00 to 7.00).
  • Overall Creative Atmosphere Index: Calculated by computing the grand mean across all 23 items or by modeling a second-order latent composite in structural equation modeling software.
  • Data Interpretation: Higher scores reflect stronger visitor perceptions of ambient creativity, aesthetic stimulation, novelty, and positive emotional arousal within the destination.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 2023.
• Original Authors: Tien-Ming Cheng and Mei-Tsun Chen.
• Copyright Ownership: Academic copyright © 2021–2023 held by the Authors and Sage Publications / International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (ICHRIE). Published in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research.
• Permissions and Access: The full publication details are copyrighted. Qualified researchers seeking to employ the instrument for non-commercial, scholarly research purposes should contact the corresponding author, Dr. Tien-Ming Cheng, via email at [email protected] to request permission and access to the complete phrasing of the original survey instrument.
• Commercial Licensing / Fees: No fee is specified for non-commercial academic research. Commercial entities or corporate consulting firms intending to implement the scale for commercial site assessments or branding audits must contact the copyright holders for licensing terms.

12. References

• Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 357–376. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.2.357
• Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. Westview Press.
• Bagozzi, R. P., & Baumgartner, H. (1994). The evaluation of structural equation models and alternative approaches. In R. P. Bagozzi (Ed.), Principles of marketing research (pp. 333–385). Blackwell.
• Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299205600205
• Cheng, T.-M., & Chen, M.-T. (2023). Creative atmosphere in creative tourism destinations: Conceptualizing and scale development. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 47(3), 590–615. https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211012459
• Churchill, G. A., Jr. (1979). A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 16(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377901600110
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Gable, R. K., & Wolf, M. B. (1993). Instrument development in the affective domain: School and corporate applications (2nd ed.). Kluwer Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1402-8
• Mehrabian, A., & Russell, J. A. (1974). An approach to environmental psychology. MIT Press.
• Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. Harvard Business Review, 76(4), 97–105.
• Richards, G., & Raymond, C. (2000). Creative tourism. ATLAS News, 23, 16–20.

13. Items of the Scale