Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use (ESCP)

Abstract

The Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use (ESCP) scale is a concise, three-item psychometric instrument designed to capture the extent to which an individual anticipates or experiences a boost in their self-perception as an ecologically responsible person as a consequence of interacting with or consuming a specific product. Introduced by Kamleitner, Thürridl, and Martin (2019) in the Journal of Marketing, the instrument was established within an empirical investigation into the “Cinderella story” effect—namely, how awakening the past identity of repurposed (upcycled) items enhances consumer demand. The ESCP scale isolates a state-like, product-evoked dimension of self-concept rather than an enduring, chronic environmental identity trait. Comprising three target descriptors (“environmentally conscious,” “sustainable,” and “eco-friendly”) evaluated along an authentic seven-point Likert response format (ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly agree”), the instrument exhibits exceptional internal consistency (typically with Cronbach’s α exceeding .90), strong unidimensionality, and acute sensitivity to contextual, product-narrative manipulations. Psychometrically, the scale serves as a critical operationalization of self-signaling and identity-based consumption within circular economic frameworks, demonstrating robust predictive validity in accounting for increased willingness to pay (WTP), brand resonance, and prosocial product choices. This article provides a comprehensive theoretical, methodological, and psychometric evaluation of the ESCP scale, reviewing its structural attributes, empirical performance across laboratory and field settings, and future research applications in sustainable marketing and environmental psychology.

Keywords

Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use, ESCP, sustainable consumption, repurposed products, upcycling, consumer identity, self-signaling theory, green consumer behavior, psychometrics, past identity salience, extended self, circular economy.

Authors

The Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use scale was developed and validated by an international team of marketing scholars specializing in consumer psychology, symbolic consumption, and pro-environmental behavior:

• Bernadette Kamleitner — Professor of Marketing and Head of the Institute for Marketing and Consumer Research at WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business), Austria. Her research investigates consumer empowerment, the psychology of ownership, the extended self, and sustainable consumption practices.
• Carina Thürridl — Researcher and behavioral scientist previously affiliated with the Institute for Marketing and Consumer Research at WU Vienna, whose work centers on consumer perceptions of circular business models, creative repurposing, and sustainable innovation.
• Brett A. S. Martin — Professor of Marketing at the QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. His scholarship focuses on consumer behavior, emotional appraisal theory, advertising effectiveness, and persuasive communication.

Purpose

Contemporary consumer research increasingly recognizes that consumption choices are dictated not only by utilitarian considerations or economic calculations of value, but also by powerful symbolic motives. Individuals purchase and display goods to affirm, signal, and negotiate their personal and social identities. Within the domain of green marketing, a long-standing challenge has been understanding how products induce feelings of environmental virtue, especially when the underlying items are recycled, remanufactured, or upcycled. The primary purpose of the Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use (ESCP) scale is to measure how strongly a consumer believes that utilizing a particular product would make them perceive themselves as environmentally conscious, sustainable, and eco-friendly.

Prior to the formulation of the ESCP, psychometric scales in environmental psychology—such as the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) or generic measures of green self-identity—focused almost exclusively on stable, chronic individual differences. While such chronic traits reflect a person’s baseline orientation toward the biosphere, they lack the sensitivity needed to register dynamic, situated self-evaluations triggered by interaction with a specific physical artifact. The ESCP scale bridges this theoretical and methodological gap by operationalizing a situated, product-contingent self-concept. It answers the fundamental question: To what extent does this specific physical artifact serve as an instrument through which consumers can update or elevate their self-perception regarding ecological sustainability?

In both research and practical applications, the ESCP serves multiple distinct functions:

• Testing Mediation in Pro-Environmental Consumption: In empirical consumer behavior research, the ESCP acts as a focal mediator that explains why contextual attributes—such as making an upcycled product’s past life salient—translate into higher purchase intentions and elevated willingness to pay. By capturing the self-enhancement potential of a product, researchers can isolate the precise mechanism connecting product storytelling to consumer demand.
• Evaluating Circular Economy Products and Sustainable Design: Product designers, packaging engineers, and sustainability managers utilize the scale to benchmark prototypes. It offers a standardized diagnostic to assess whether eco-innovations (e.g., backpacks made from discarded truck tarpaulins, ocean-plastic footwear, or compostable electronics) deliver psychological value to the consumer beyond basic utilitarian performance.
• Mitigating Greenwashing Skepticism: By assessing product-evoked self-concept alongside measures of skepticism, researchers can ascertain whether overly aggressive green claims backfire by undermining the authenticity of the consumer’s self-signaling experience.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the ESCP scale is situated environmental self-concept derived from product engagement. Grounded in social cognitive frameworks, the self-concept is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional, dynamic knowledge structure comprising all beliefs, evaluations, and self-schemas that an individual maintains regarding who they are. Although parts of the self-concept remain relatively stable across time, social psychologists emphasize the existence of the working self-concept—a malleable, context-dependent subset of self-representations that are activated by salient situational cues, external stimuli, and immediate behavioral opportunities.

The ESCP taps directly into this dynamic, working self-concept, specifically tracking how environmental self-schemas are temporarily augmented through product adoption. Rather than assessing what the consumer believes about environmental degradation broadly, the construct captures an internal attribution process: the degree to which an individual projects environmental virtue onto themselves via the vehicle of the product. The scale reflects three closely aligned cognitive-affective appraisals:

1. Self-Consciousness of Environmental Action

The descriptor “environmentally conscious” taps into an internal cognitive appraisal regarding intentionality and mindfulness. Consumers scoring high on this facet perceive that incorporating the product into their everyday life would align their conscious thoughts and daily behaviors with an ethic of environmental stewardship. It represents an intellectual awareness of ecological consequences and the belief that the product embodies deliberate, thoughtful decision-making rather than careless consumption.

2. Systemic Sustainability Orientation

The descriptor “sustainable” reflects an assessment of resource conservation, longevity, and closed-loop systems. When applied to the self, feeling “sustainable” suggests that the individual perceives their consumption pattern as capable of enduring without inflicting net ecological deficits. It signals a shift from linear consumption (take-make-dispose) toward a regenerative personal lifestyle, reflecting a self-perception of systemic responsibility.

3. Eco-Friendly Affective Alignment

The descriptor “eco-friendly” represents an affective and approachable dimension of green self-expression. In contemporary consumer culture, “eco-friendly” is a widely understood heuristic signaling harmony with nature, low carbon footprint, and minimal environmental harm. Feeling “eco-friendly” through product use embodies a positive, self-affirming moral glow that reinforces the consumer’s desired social and personal identity.

Together, these three items do not represent independent factors, but rather a cohesive, unidimensional psychological index. The construct does not measure perceived product quality, brand warmth, or environmental attitude in the abstract; rather, it exclusively isolates the reflexive psychological consequence of consumption upon the user’s self-schema.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use scale rests upon four interrelated theoretical paradigms within psychology and consumer research: Symbolic Interactionism, the Theory of the Extended Self, Self-Signaling Theory, and Identity Salience Theory.

Symbolic Interactionism and the Extended Self

Originating from the sociological work of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer, symbolic interactionism posits that human behavior is guided by the meanings that individuals assign to objects, symbols, and social interactions. Russell Belk (1988) translated this paradigm into consumer research through his seminal theory of the extended self, arguing that consumers actively construct, stabilize, and project their personal identities through material possessions (“we are what we have”). Products are not merely bundles of utilitarian attributes; they serve as physical manifestations of the self. When a product conveys a potent narrative of environmental regeneration—as observed in repurposed or upcycled goods—it functions as an identity-anchoring vessel. The ESCP scale quantifies this exact psychological transformation: the incorporation of a product’s ecological narrative into the boundaries of the consumer’s extended self.

Self-Signaling Theory

Traditional economic and evolutionary models of consumption frequently emphasize social signaling (costly signaling, conspicuous conservation), where individuals display green products to project high moral or socioeconomic status to external observers. In contrast, self-signaling theory (Bodner & Prelec, 2003) posits that individuals frequently consume goods to provide diagnostic information about their own moral character to themselves. Because an individual’s underlying ethical attributes are not directly accessible, people infer their own values, virtues, and identity by observing their own actions and consumption choices. Within the theoretical model developed by Kamleitner et al. (2019), repurposed products that openly reveal their prior life history provide a heightened self-signaling utility. Choosing such a product offers the consumer compelling evidence that they are a genuinely pro-environmental person, which is empirically indexed by elevated scores on the ESCP scale.

Identity Salience and Narrative Processing

Identity salience theory (Stryker, 1968; Reed et al., 2012) explains that human beings hold a multitude of social and personal identities (e.g., parent, professional, environmentalist, athlete) arranged in a salience hierarchy. The probability that a specific identity will influence behavior depends heavily on contextual triggers. Kamleitner et al. (2019) demonstrated that when a repurposed product explicitly conveys its “past identity”—for example, showcasing that a designer tote bag was formerly a commercial awning, or that a table was crafted from salvage ship timbers—it activates a narrative transformation. This past identity salience elevates the product’s perceived transformative journey, which in turn elevates the consumer’s own environmental self-concept upon hypothetical or real usage. The ESCP scale operationalizes the psychological culmination of this narrative process.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the ESCP scale has been empirically established across multiple studies employing laboratory experiments, online randomized controlled trials, and field-based interventions. The validation process adhered to rigorous standards across four core validity dimensions:

Construct and Content Validity

Content validity was confirmed by grounding the three items in prevailing environmental lexicon and consumer self-concept literature. The three descriptors (“environmentally conscious,” “sustainable,” and “eco-friendly”) comprehensively represent the central semantic core of contemporary ecological identity. In their original investigation, Kamleitner et al. (2019) verified through cognitive pretesting that participants accurately interpreted the prompt as an evaluation of their own anticipated self-perception rather than an objective rating of the product’s manufacturing footprint.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is verified when a scale demonstrates high statistical correlations with theoretically related constructs. Across the studies reported by Kamleitner et al. (2019):

• The ESCP showed substantial positive correlations with general pro-environmental self-identity (typically r values between .55 and .70, p < .001), indicating that consumers with strong chronic green identities are indeed more receptive to experiencing product-evoked environmental self-enhancement.
• The scale correlated significantly with willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for repurposed and eco-friendly products, demonstrating that self-evaluative psychological rewards translate directly into perceived economic value.
• In experimental designs, conditions featuring high past identity salience (vs. control conditions lacking narrative history) produced statistically significant increases in ESCP ratings (e.g., F-tests demonstrating medium-to-large effect sizes, partial η² ranging from .06 to .14 across studies), verifying the instrument’s construct responsiveness.

Discriminant Validity

To establish that the ESCP does not merely capture general positive product attitudes or aesthetic appreciation, discriminant validity was rigorously evaluated. In structural equation modeling (SEM) and factor analyses:

• The average variance extracted (AVE) for the ESCP scale exceeded the squared correlations between ESCP and adjacent constructs, such as perceived functional quality, general product attractiveness, brand prestige, and general utilitarian value, meeting the classic Fornell-Larcker criterion.
• While participants frequently evaluated conventional, non-upcycled luxury products as highly attractive and of superior quality, these ratings failed to elevate ESCP scores, confirming that general product appreciation does not artificially inflate environmental self-concept.

Predictive and Mediational Validity

The predictive validity of the ESCP is demonstrated by its robust performance as a mediator in bootstrap mediation analyses (e.g., using Hayes’ PROCESS macro, Model 4). In Kamleitner et al. (2019), the indirect effect of past identity salience on purchase intentions and actual real-choice behaviors through ESCP was consistently positive and statistically significant (95% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals strictly excluding zero). This confirms that product-derived self-concept is not merely a passive byproduct of consumption, but an active, driving psychological determinant of sustainable consumer behavior.

Reliability

The reliability of the Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use scale has been established across multiple independent samples, diverse product categories (e.g., fashion accessories, household furniture, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods), and cross-national consumer panels.

Internal Consistency

Across all reported experimental studies in the foundational literature, the ESCP exhibits high internal consistency:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): In the initial validation studies by Kamleitner et al. (2019), the three-item index yielded internal consistency estimates consistently exceeding α = .90. Specific studies reported alpha values of .93 (Study 1), .94 (Study 2), .91 (Study 3), and .95 in associated replication and extension datasets. These values comfortably exceed the conventional psychometric threshold of .70 (or .80 for basic research), signifying negligible measurement error among the three items.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation modeling iterations have reported composite reliability figures consistently between .92 and .96, confirming that the latent construct is captured with high precision.
• Average Variance Extracted (AVE): The AVE for the three-item instrument typically surpasses .80 (well above the recommended benchmark of .50), demonstrating that more than 80% of the variance captured by the indicators is due to the underlying latent construct rather than random error.

Item-Total Correlations and Stability

Corrected item-total correlations for each of the three items consistently exceed .82. Because the instrument is intended as a state-like, stimulus-responsive measure, traditional test-retest reliability across long time intervals is theoretically contraindicated; however, across immediate repeated-exposure trials, the scale demonstrates high stability in the absence of external narrative manipulations.

Factor Analysis

The dimensionality and structural validity of the ESCP scale have been scrutinized through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When the three items are submitted to principal components analysis or maximum likelihood factor analysis with unrotated extraction:

• A single, robust factor reliably emerges with an eigenvalue well above the Kaiser criterion (λ > 2.50, typically explaining between 82% and 89% of the total item variance).
• No secondary factors emerge with eigenvalues exceeding 0.35, confirming an absence of multidimensional splintering.
• Factor loadings for each of the three indicators are exceptionally high and uniform, routinely clustering between .89 and .96.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In structural equation modeling frameworks where the three items are specified to load onto a single latent factor representing Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use, the model is saturated (just-identified) with zero degrees of freedom when estimated in isolation. However, when modeled in a multi-construct measurement model alongside related variables (such as past identity salience, chronic environmental concern, perceived product durability, and purchase intentions), the CFA demonstrates exceptional goodness-of-fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Routinely > .98 (often > .99)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Routinely > .97
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): < .05 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .068)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): < .03

Standardized factor loadings in CFA models are universally strong, typically displaying values such as .92 for “environmentally conscious,” .94 for “sustainable,” and .91 for “eco-friendly,” with all loadings statistically significant at p < .001. These structural findings corroborate that the scale functions as an exceptionally coherent, unidimensional measure.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the ESCP instrument are detailed below:

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric scale; situated consumer self-appraisal inventory.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil or digital/computer-assisted survey administration (e.g., Qualtrics, Gorilla, Confirmit). Suitable for laboratory experiments, online research panels, and mobile intercept surveys.
• Number of Items: 3 items (unidimensional).
• Item Prompt / Lead-In Stem: Respondents are presented with a product concept, physical artifact, or experimental scenario, followed by the lead-in: “Using this product would make me feel…” (or adapted for post-use evaluation: “Using this product makes me feel…”).
• Authentic Response Scale: 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
• Scoring Rules: There are no reverse-coded items. The overall score for the Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use is computed as the arithmetic average (mean) across all three items:
  
  ESCP Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3
  
  Scores range from 1.00 to 7.00, with higher scores reflecting a stronger product-evoked environmental self-concept.
• Administration Time: Approximately 30 to 45 seconds, making it ideal for inclusion in complex experimental designs where participant fatigue must be minimized.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Environmental Self-Concept from Product Use (ESCP) scale was published in 2019 by the American Marketing Association in the Journal of Marketing. As an academic measurement tool published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, the scale is widely accessible for academic research, education, and non-commercial scientific inquiry without payment of royalties, subject to standard scholarly attribution and citation of the foundational paper:

Kamleitner, B., Thürridl, C., & Martin, B. A. S. (2019). A Cinderella story: How past identity salience boosts demand for repurposed products. Journal of Marketing, 83(6), 76–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919873904

Commercial practitioners, market research agencies, or corporations seeking to integrate the scale into proprietary commercial benchmarking platforms should consult standard copyright policies administered by the American Marketing Association and SAGE Publications.

References

• Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1086/209154
• Bodner, R., & Prelec, D. (2003). Self-signaling and diagnostic utility in everyday decision making. In I. Brocas & J. D. Carrillo (Eds.), The Psychology of Economic Decisions: Rationality and Well-Being (Vol. 1, pp. 105–126). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0199251088.003.0006
• Dunlap, R. E., Liere, K. D. V., Mertig, A. G., & Jones, R. E. (2000). Measuring endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A revised NEP scale. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 425–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00176
• 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
• Kamleitner, B., Thürridl, C., & Martin, B. A. S. (2019). A Cinderella story: How past identity salience boosts demand for repurposed products. Journal of Marketing, 83(6), 76–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919873904
• Reed, A., Forehand, M. R., Puntoni, S., & Warlop, L. (2012). Identity-based consumer behavior. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(4), 310–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2012.08.002
• Stryker, S. (1968). Identity salience and role performance: The relevance of symbolic interaction theory for family research. Journal of Marriage and Family, 30(4), 558–564. https://doi.org/10.2307/349494
• White, K., Habib, R., & Hardisty, D. J. (2019). How to SHIFT consumer behaviors to be more sustainable: A literature review and guiding framework. Journal of Marketing, 83(3), 22–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919834114

Items of the Scale