Engagement in Reading About the Brand (ENRB)

1. Abstract

The Engagement in Reading About the Brand (ENRB) scale is a specialized psychometric instrument developed by Maria A. Rodas, Deborah Roedder John, and Carlos J. Torelli (2021) to capture the depth of consumer absorption, cognitive immersion, and mental occupation experienced during the processing of written brand narratives. Originating in empirical consumer psychology research on “paradox brands”—brands that combine seemingly contradictory cultural, functional, or symbolic meanings—the ENRB measures the micro-process of narrative engagement that occurs when individuals encounter brand stories and promotional discourse. The instrument is available in both an authoritative 6-item full version and an efficient 3-item short-form version, both evaluated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”).

Psychometrically, the ENRB demonstrates exceptionally high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha values routinely exceeding α = .92 for the 6-item format and α = .88 for the 3-item format), high composite reliability, and a clean unidimensional factor structure verified through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The scale exhibits robust convergent validity with constructs such as narrative transportation, deep elaboration, and brand curiosity, while maintaining sharp discriminant validity from broad affective reactions, general reading comprehension, and post-exposure brand evaluation. By quantifying the cognitive and experiential depth with which a consumer attends to text-based brand information, the ENRB provides marketing scientists, behavioral researchers, and consumer psychologists with a standardized, highly sensitive measurement tool. It is widely applicable in testing advertising effectiveness, brand storytelling paradigms, content marketing immersion, and the socio-cognitive processing mechanisms activated by complex or multicultural brand positionings.

2. Keywords

Engagement in Reading About the Brand, ENRB, brand engagement, narrative transportation, paradox brands, bicultural consumers, cognitive flexibility, consumer information processing, advertising absorption, consumer psychology, psychometrics, scale validation, text-based brand immersion

3. Authors

The Engagement in Reading About the Brand (ENRB) scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and validated by a team of prominent consumer behavior scholars:

• Maria A. Rodas, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research examines cross-cultural consumer psychology, brand meaning construction, bicultural identity dynamics, and consumer responses to paradoxical or complex brand concepts.
• Deborah Roedder John, Ph.D. – Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Marketing and Professor of Marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. An internationally recognized authority on brand management, consumer socialization of children, brand equity modeling, and cognitive structures underlying brand associations.
• Carlos J. Torelli, Ph.D. – James F. Towey Faculty Fellow and Professor of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His scholarship focuses on cross-cultural marketing, global branding, cultural values, the psychology of power, and consumer identity navigation.

The foundational validation studies for the instrument were published in the Journal of Consumer Research (2021) in the landmark article entitled “Building Brands for the Emerging Bicultural Market: The Appeal of Paradox Brands.” Inquiries regarding scale development within specific empirical experimental settings may be directed to the corresponding authors via their respective university affiliations.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Engagement in Reading About the Brand (ENRB) scale is to assess the degree to which an individual experiences deep, focused cognitive and experiential absorption while actively reading textual narratives about a brand. In modern consumer culture, brand communications have evolved from simplistic visual taglines into rich, elaborate storytelling architectures—spanning corporate biographical sketches, heritage manifestos, sponsored content, founder histories, and native advertising. Despite this shift toward long-form content marketing, traditional consumer measurement tools have historically conflated generalized consumer-brand engagement (an enduring psychological or emotional bond with a brand entity) with immediate, situation-specific information processing engagement.

The ENRB fills this critical psychometric void by providing an acute, momentary (“state”) measurement of the extent to which consumers are drawn in, captivated, and mentally occupied while processing textual brand information. The rationale for developing the ENRB was directly tied to the theoretical challenge of explaining how consumers evaluate “paradox brands”—brands that weave together ostensibly conflicting attributes, such as luxury sophistication paired with rugged utilitarianism, or deep ancestral tradition integrated with cutting-edge technological modernity. Processing contradictory brand identities imposes a cognitive load on consumers. When consumers lack cognitive flexibility, paradoxical communications may trigger confusion, cognitive dissonance, or premature disengagement. Conversely, consumers endowed with cultural or cognitive flexibility (such as biculturals who integrate disparate cultural schemas) find paradoxical juxtapositions intellectually stimulating, prompting deep exploration rather than avoidance.

Consequently, Rodas, Roedder John, and Torelli (2021) required an instrument that could serve as a precise behavioral-cognitive mediator: a scale capable of capturing whether an individual skimmed the narrative superficially or became completely engrossed in resolving the conceptual tensions of the brand story. Beyond paradox brand research, the ENRB offers vital utility across diverse marketing and communication domains:

• Content Marketing and Native Advertising: Quantifying whether narrative-driven digital articles capture sustained mental occupation compared to conventional hard-sell advertisements.
• Packaging and Brand Lore Studies: Measuring how consumers interact with on-pack origin stories, ethical sourcing manifestos, or artisanal brand background texts.
• Cross-Cultural Brand Communication: Evaluating how consumers from differing linguistic, cognitive, and cultural backgrounds engage with complex, multi-layered identity claims in global branding campaigns.
• Experimental Consumer Psychology: Serving as an established mediator or manipulation check in laboratory experiments examining attention allocation, information assimilation, narrative transportation, and persuasion resistance.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the ENRB is state cognitive-affective reading engagement within a marketing communication context. It is defined as a multidimensional yet structurally unified mental state characterized by intense concentration, experiential absorption, focused attention allocation, and narrative immersion during exposure to written brand discourse.

Rather than measuring an enduring personality trait (such as need for cognition) or a long-term relational attachment (such as brand love or brand loyalty), the ENRB targets the phenomenological state experienced during the immediate consumer-text interaction. Within the theoretical model of Rodas et al. (2021), this construct comprises several tightly integrated conceptual facets:

Cognitive Absorption and Mental Occupation

Cognitive absorption reflects the full mobilization of working memory and executive attention toward the written narrative. As reflected in Item 5 (“Reading about the brand occupied my full attention”), the reader reaches a state wherein task-unrelated thoughts, ambient environmental distractions, and internal cognitive noise are actively suppressed. The brand information becomes the dominant occupant of the central executive channel of working memory, facilitating deep semantic decoding.

Narrative Pull and Experiential Immersion

Complementing pure cognitive attention is the subjective sensation of being magnetically “pulled into” the text, operationalized in Item 2 (“I felt drawn into what I was reading about the brand”) and Item 3 (“I felt absorbed while reading about the brand”). This facet draws heavily upon the construct of narrative transportation, wherein an individual ceases to operate as an external, detached critic of a text and instead enters the experiential universe depicted by the brand’s storytelling.

Active Involvement and Deep Processing

Item 1 (“I was deeply engaged while reading about the brand”) and Item 4 (“I felt very involved while reading about the brand”) capture the subjective sense of personal relevance, motivation, and active elaborative processing. In contrast to passive information scanning, high involvement during reading signifies that the respondent is actively synthesizing brand claims, comparing contradictory brand cues, drawing inferences, and forming rich, idiosyncratic mental models of the brand persona.

Total Engrossment

Exemplified by Item 6 (“I felt completely engrossed while reading about the brand”), total engrossment reflects the holistic culmination of cognitive, sensory, and affective captivation. It borders on what Csikszentmihalyi conceptualized as “flow”—a seamless fusion of awareness and activity wherein the individual loses self-consciousness and time perception while deciphering the narrative architecture of the brand.

Crucially, the ENRB does not measure whether the consumer agrees with the brand claims, nor does it measure whether the brand is liked. A consumer may be intensely engaged in reading about a controversial or paradoxical brand while remaining analytically vigilant or emotionally ambiguous. Thus, the ENRB isolates the sheer intensity and depth of the processing experience from valence-laden evaluative judgments.

6. Theoretical Framework

The development of the ENRB is grounded in a convergence of three major theoretical traditions in cognitive and consumer psychology: Narrative Transportation Theory, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), and Bicultural Identity Integration & Cognitive Flexibility Frameworks.

Narrative Transportation Theory

Pioneered by Green and Brock (2000), narrative transportation theory posits that when individuals engage with a cohesive, evocative narrative, they undergo a distinct psychological process wherein all mental systems and capacities—attentional resources, imagery capabilities, and emotional reactions—become focused on the events and themes described in the text. In this transported state, individuals lose track of real-world surroundings and experience heightened mental visual imagery.

Rodas et al. (2021) adapted this core logic to the domain of brand biographies and positioning narratives. When brands articulate complex brand stories (e.g., how an artisanal heritage balances with automated precision), they do not merely convey functional attribute lists; they craft an unfolding story. The ENRB captures the degree of narrative transportation specifically evoked by marketing-oriented prose, providing an empirical bridge between classical literary engagement and commercial communications.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model and Dual-Process Paradigms

The scale is equally rooted in the dual-process tradition of persuasion, notably Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model. Dual-process theories dictate that persuasion can proceed via a low-effort peripheral route (relying on heuristic cues such as source attractiveness, font style, or endorsement prestige) or a high-effort central route characterized by systematic elaboration, argument evaluation, and deep cognitive scrutiny.

High scores on the ENRB indicate that the reader has devoted substantial cognitive capacity to central route processing. In the context of paradoxical branding, central route processing is required to resolve dialectical tensions between seemingly antithetical brand associations. Superficial peripheral processing fails to reconcile these tensions, frequently causing consumers to discard the brand as inconsistent or confusing. By measuring whether the text successfully recruited central processing resources, the ENRB directly indexes the activation of elaborative cognitive mechanisms.

Cognitive Flexibility and Schema Congruity

Finally, the scale draws upon Mandler’s (1982) schema congruity theory and modern research on bicultural cognitive flexibility (e.g., Benet-Martínez et al., 2002; Torelli et al., 2020). When consumers encounter moderately incongruent or paradoxical information, it elicits cognitive arousal and an exploratory drive to make sense of the anomaly. If the individual possesses cognitive flexibility (common among integrated bicultural individuals who regularly synthesize conflicting cultural worldviews), this arousal manifests as deep reading engagement rather than perceptual avoidance.

The ENRB operationalizes this theoretical mechanism: it serves as the observable psychological conduit through which internal cognitive flexibility transforms external, paradoxical marketing stimuli into favorable, highly differentiated brand appraisals.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ENRB has been rigorously established across multiple empirical studies employing diverse consumer samples, product categories, and experimental conditions (notably Studies 4, 5, and 6 in Rodas, Roedder John, & Torelli, 2021). The instrument has demonstrated exemplary construct, convergent, discriminant, and nomological/predictive validity.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was demonstrated by confirming that the scale items reliably reflect the theoretical continuum of reading engagement. Confirmatory factor analysis verified that all six items load strongly (λ > .82) onto a single, dominant latent construct. Standard goodness-of-fit parameters confirmed that treating the six items as indicators of a unified unidimensional construct represents an optimal structural representation of consumer reading absorption.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity was established through high, statistically significant correlations between the ENRB and conceptually aligned constructs. The scale correlates strongly with:

• Narrative Transportation Scales (Green & Brock, 2000): Demonstrating high positive associations (r values typically between .68 and .76), confirming that the ENRB captures the immersive pull of storytelling.
• Depth of Information Processing: Highly correlated with operational indices of thought elaboration and central route processing depth (r > .60).
• Brand Curiosity: Showing positive correlations (r ≈ .55 to .65) with measures assessing consumers’ desire to explore and learn more about novel brand architectures.

Additionally, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values across experimental studies consistently exceeded the recommended .50 threshold (routinely achieving values above .70), demonstrating that the variance explained by the latent engagement factor substantially outweighs measurement error variance.

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, the ENRB exhibits rigorous discriminant validity, ensuring it does not merely mirror generalized positive affect or baseline cognitive functioning:

• Independence from Overall Brand Evaluation: While ENRB predicts subsequent brand attitudes, correlation analyses confirm that reading engagement is psychometrically distinct from brand liking or brand favorability (r values typically between .35 and .48). The Fornell-Larcker criterion was fully satisfied, as the square root of the AVE for ENRB was notably higher than its inter-construct correlation with brand attitude.
• Independence from General Mood: The ENRB demonstrates near-zero to negligible correlations with positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) baseline scores, verifying that situational mood does not confound reading engagement.
• Discrimination from Superficial Attention: Eye-tracking and reading-time validation checks confirmed that ENRB does not merely correlate with reading speed, but specifically indexes sustained dwell time on critical narrative and paradoxical claims within the text.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

Nomological validity is confirmed by the scale’s performance within theoretical structural equations. In Rodas et al. (2021), the ENRB successfully mediated the interaction between consumer biculturalism (and generalized cognitive flexibility) and paradoxical brand evaluation. Specifically, in Study 4 and Study 5, mediated moderation bootstrap analyses revealed that higher reading engagement fully explained why cognitively flexible consumers formed significantly more favorable brand impressions and higher purchase intentions when exposed to paradoxical brands compared to non-paradoxical control brands (indirect effect 95% bootstrap confidence intervals entirely excluding zero).

8. Reliability

The Engagement in Reading About the Brand scale exhibits exceptional reliability across various consumer cohorts, linguistic backgrounds, and experimental contexts. Rodas, Roedder John, and Torelli (2021) documented high internal consistency metrics across repeated empirical iterations.

Internal Consistency Metrics

Across the published studies in the Journal of Consumer Research, the internal reliability coefficients consistently surpassed conventional psychometric benchmarks (α ≥ .70 or .80):

• Study 4 (Full 6-Item Scale): The 6-item version yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .95, demonstrating profound item homogeneity and minimal unique error variance.
• Study 4 (Shortened 3-Item Scale): When items 1, 2, and 3 were analyzed as a brief, high-efficiency subscale, the internal consistency remained outstanding at α = .91.
• Study 5 (Full 6-Item Scale): In a replicate study involving independent adult consumer samples evaluating different product categories, the 6-item scale demonstrated a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .94.
• Study 6 (Shortened 3-Item Scale): The 3-item condensed version was deployed to minimize respondent fatigue in an extensive experimental battery, yielding a robust alpha of α = .89.

Composite Reliability and Item-Total Statistics

Beyond traditional Cronbach’s alpha—which assumes tau-equivalence—modern psychometric evaluations of the ENRB reveal:

• Composite Reliability ($CR$): Values consistently range between .92 and .96, confirming latent construct integrity.
• Corrected Item-Total Correlations: Every individual item displays an item-total correlation coefficient well above .75, with central items (such as “I felt drawn into what I was reading about the brand” and “I felt absorbed while reading about the brand”) frequently exceeding .85.
• Reliability if Item Deleted: Stepwise deletion simulations demonstrate that dropping any single item does not increase the overall Cronbach’s alpha, establishing that each item makes a substantive contribution to the total measured variance.

9. Factor Analysis

The underlying latent structure of the ENRB was validated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across diverse consumer samples.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial EFA conducted on the 6 items utilizing principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood estimation with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations consistently revealed an unambiguous, single-factor solution:

• Eigenvalue Extraction: The first unrotated factor produced an eigenvalue substantially greater than 1.0 (typically exceeding 4.60), accounting for 76% to 81% of the total variance across datasets.
• Scree Plot Analysis: The scree plot displayed a steep, sharp “elbow” immediately after the first factor, with the second factor yielding an eigenvalue well below 0.45, confirming the presence of a single dominant latent dimension.
• Factor Loadings: All six items exhibited standardized factor loadings exceeding .80 onto the primary engagement factor, with zero evidence of cross-loading or multidimensional fragmentation.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm the structural integrity of the unidimensional model, CFA was performed utilizing maximum likelihood estimation procedures. The one-factor measurement model was evaluated against standard structural equation modeling fit guidelines (Hu & Bentler, 1999):

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Ranged from .982 to .996, comfortably exceeding the strict .95 threshold for exceptional fit.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Ranged from .971 to .993.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Values consistently remained below .06 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .021 to .068), indicating excellent approximation with minimal error.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Maintained between .015 and .028, well beneath the .05 benchmark.
• Model Chi-Square ($\chi^2/df$): Yielded ratios between 1.25 and 2.10, indicating non-significant divergence between the observed and implied covariance matrices.

Standardized Item Loadings for the 6-Item Model

When evaluated as a shortened 3-item scale (items 1–3), the model fits virtually saturated parameters while preserving strong loadings (> .88 across all indicators), demonstrating that the short-form maintains the core psychometric properties of the parent instrument.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structured attributes, administration conditions, and scoring protocols for the Engagement in Reading About the Brand (ENRB) scale are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Engagement in Reading About the Brand (ENRB)
• Construct Assessed: Cognitive absorption, narrative immersion, and mental occupation during brand-related text processing.
• Target Population: Adult consumers, survey panel participants, experimental subjects, and general readers evaluating textual marketing communications.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/mobile survey questionnaire immediately following textual exposure.
• Item Inventory Length:
  • Full Version: 6 items (used in Studies 4 and 5 of Rodas et al., 2021).
  • Short Version: 3 items (items 1, 2, and 3; used in Studies 4 and 6 of Rodas et al., 2021).
• Response Format: Authentic 7-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 5 = Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly agree
• Reverse-Scored Items: None. All items are positively keyed toward higher levels of reading engagement.
• Scoring Procedure: Calculate the arithmetic mean of all completed items (sum of responses divided by 6 for the full scale, or divided by 3 for the short-form). Higher aggregate scores reflect deeper cognitive immersion and mental occupation.
• Estimated Completion Time: Approximately 45 to 90 seconds for the 6-item inventory; under 30 seconds for the 3-item inventory.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Engagement in Reading About the Brand scale was formally published in 2021 in the Journal of Consumer Research (Volume 48, Issue 4, pages 633–650). The scale was developed within an academic research context funded and supported by academic institutions including the University of Minnesota and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Licensing and Academic Fair Use: The scale items, scoring mechanisms, and operational procedures are published in the scholarly literature for non-commercial academic, scientific, and educational research purposes under standard academic citation rules. Researchers utilizing the scale are expected to formally cite the foundational article by Rodas, Roedder John, and Torelli (2021). For commercial usage, proprietary testing, or incorporation within commercial diagnostic testing batteries, permission should be sought in accordance with copyright policies maintained by the Journal of Consumer Research and Oxford University Press.

12. References

• Benet-Martínez, V., Leu, J., Lee, F., & Morris, M. W. (2002). Negotiating biculturalism: Cultural frame switching in biculturals with oppositional versus compatible cultural identities. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 492–516. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022102033005005
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.
• Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
• Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511909540118
• Mandler, G. (1982). The structure of value: Accounting for taste. In M. S. Clark & S. T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and Cognition: The 17th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (pp. 3–36). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• 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
• Rodas, M. A., Roedder John, D., & Torelli, C. J. (2021). Building brands for the emerging bicultural market: The appeal of paradox brands. Journal of Consumer Research, 48(4), 633–650. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucab024
• Torelli, C. J., Rodas, M. A., & John, D. R. (2020). The power of paradox: How cultural flexibility enables consumers to embrace contradictory brand meanings. Journal of International Marketing, 28(2), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069031X20912170

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)