Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale

Abstract

The Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale (OL-OS), developed by Leisa R. Flynn, Ronald E. Goldsmith, and Jacqueline K. Eastman (1996), is an established psychometric instrument designed to capture the twin dynamics of interpersonal influence within consumer markets and social networks: opinion leadership and opinion seeking. Grounded in sociology, mass communication, and consumer psychology, the OL-OS overcomes the structural and psychometric shortcomings of prior instruments—such as the King and Summers (1970) scale and its modifications—by establishing two balanced, unidimensional, six-item subscales calibrated across multiple consumer domains. The instrument employs a 7-point Likert-type response format (ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree), and is adaptable to any specific product category, service domain, or topic area.

Across five empirical validation studies comprising 1,128 diverse respondents and evaluating varied product categories (including rock music, fashion apparel, and environmentally friendly “green” products), the OL-OS demonstrated exceptional psychometric properties. Confirmatory factor analyses utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmed that opinion leadership (OL) and opinion seeking (OS) represent distinct, unidimensional constructs rather than opposite poles of a single bipolar continuum. Internal consistency estimates proved uniformly high across studies, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.78 to 0.93 for the Opinion Leadership subscale and from 0.81 to 0.93 for the Opinion Seeking subscale. Test-retest reliability across a four-week interval (n = 127) yielded stable coefficients of r = 0.82 for OL and r = 0.75 for OS. The subscales demonstrate strong convergent validity, with OL correlating at r = 0.72 with the established King and Summers scale, as well as robust criterion, predictive, and discriminant validity across measures of perceived knowledge, consumer innovativeness, enduring product involvement, and actual purchase behaviors. Consequently, the OL-OS remains a gold-standard instrument for researchers assessing interpersonal communication, diffusion of innovations, and word-of-mouth (WOM) dynamics.

Keywords

opinion leadership, opinion seeking, word-of-mouth communication, interpersonal influence, consumer innovativeness, enduring involvement, psychometrics, scale validation, structural equation modeling, diffusion of innovations

Authors

The Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale was conceptualized, developed, and psychometrically validated by:

• Leisa Reinecke Flynn, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States. Dr. Flynn has published extensively on consumer behavior, interpersonal influence, fashion adoption, and survey measurement methodology.
• Ronald E. Goldsmith, Ph.D. — Richard M. Baker Associate Professor (subsequently Professor Emeritus) of Marketing, Department of Marketing, College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States. Dr. Goldsmith is a recognized authority in personality and consumer behavior, consumer innovativeness, psychometrics, and brand evaluation.
• Jacqueline K. Eastman, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing (subsequently Professor of Marketing), Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, United States. Her research centers on status consumption, consumer shopping motivations, healthcare marketing, and pedagogical methods.

Correspondence regarding the original scale development was directed to Dr. Leisa R. Flynn at the College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1042.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale is to provide behavioral scientists, marketing scholars, communication theorists, and applied market researchers with a psychometrically sound, reliable, and construct-valid tool for measuring two distinct interpersonal communication roles: advice giving (opinion leadership) and advice seeking (opinion seeking). Understanding how ideas, behaviors, technologies, and consumer products diffuse through social systems requires an accurate assessment of the nodes within social networks that filter, accelerate, or redirect information flow.

Historically, research on interpersonal communication relied heavily on the early sociological scale developed by King and Summers (1970), which adapted the foundational work of Paul Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz, and colleagues. While revolutionary for its era, the King and Summers instrument presented profound methodological limitations. Specifically, it utilized items with varying numbers of response categories, mixed response anchors, and unbalanced response options. These variations produced unequal item variances, complicated scoring procedures, introduced artificial measurement error, and violated fundamental assumptions required for modern structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis. Subsequent attempts to refine the scale (e.g., Childers, 1986) converted items into a uniform Likert format; however, empirical replications frequently revealed unstable factor structures, problematic error covariances, and persistent item cross-loadings.

Moreover, the academic literature had predominantly conceptualized opinion leadership and opinion seeking as diametrically opposed poles of an assumed single behavioral continuum, or had focused almost exclusively on the “sender” of word-of-mouth (the opinion leader) while neglecting the “receiver” (the opinion seeker). Flynn, Goldsmith, and Eastman (1996) addressed this gap by asserting that giving and seeking information are theoretically distinct behavioral tendencies that operate in tandem. An individual may simultaneously exhibit high levels of both leadership and seeking within a domain (acting as an active information hub or “market maven”), exhibit high leadership but low seeking, exhibit low leadership but high seeking, or remain entirely passive.

The OL-OS was deliberately engineered to fulfill several specific research and clinical/practical purposes:

• To provide two brief, parallel, 6-item unidimensional subscales that minimize participant fatigue while preserving content domain coverage.
• To implement an identical 7-point Likert-type response format across all items, ensuring equal weighting, variance homogeneity, and structural symmetry.
• To offer an adaptable template where the bracketed marker [product category] can be systematically substituted for any topic, product class, political issue, cultural practice, or technological innovation.
• To enable empirical testing of complex structural models involving the antecedents (e.g., enduring involvement, self-confidence, domain knowledge) and consequences (e.g., adoption behavior, brand advocacy, information diffusion) of interpersonal influence.

Psychological Construct

The OL-OS operationalizes two interrelated yet distinct facets of interpersonal communication: Opinion Leadership and Opinion Seeking. Neither construct represents a generalized, global personality trait; rather, both are conceptualized as domain-specific psychological orientations characterized by stable behavioral patterns within a defined area of interest.

Opinion Leadership (OL)

Opinion leadership is defined as the degree to which an individual perceives themselves as exerting informal personal influence over the attitudes, opinions, and purchase decisions of other individuals within a specified domain. Opinion leaders are not necessarily formal authorities, celebrities, or institutional figures; rather, their influence operates through horizontal peer networks characterized by accessibility, trust, and perceived credibility.

Psychologically, opinion leadership is driven by high levels of subjective and objective product knowledge, elevated enduring involvement, and heightened personal innovativeness. Opinion leaders serve as critical gatekeepers in the social diffusion process. When individuals perceive that others regularly solicit their advice and rely on their recommendations, they experience heightened self-efficacy regarding their expertise. The six items comprising the OL subscale directly evaluate:

• The perceived weight and social value of the individual’s opinion in peer conversations (e.g., whether one’s opinion “counts”).
• The frequency with which others actively solicit the respondent’s guidance when making evaluations or selections.
• The direct behavioral consequence of the individual’s guidance (e.g., peers selecting specific products based on the respondent’s recommendations).
• The individual’s conscious awareness of their active, persuasive influence over the viewpoints held by members of their social environment.

Opinion Seeking (OS)

Opinion seeking is defined as the deliberate behavioral tendency of an individual to solicit advice, information, and personal viewpoints from others when forming attitudes or making purchase decisions within a specified domain. Far from reflecting a mere deficit in cognitive capability or intellectual confidence, opinion seeking represents an active, rational risk-reduction strategy and a mechanism for social affiliation.

Consumers frequently encounter high perceived financial, functional, psychological, or social risk when selecting products characterized by high technological complexity or significant symbolic visibility (e.g., fashion, electronics, health practices). In response, opinion seekers actively leverage social proof and peer validation to attenuate cognitive dissonance, reduce the effort required for extensive external information search, and confirm social consensus. The six items of the OS subscale capture:

• The overt behavioral solicitation of advice prior to making a commitment or purchase.
• The internal need and psychological drive to consult peer networks rather than deciding in isolation.
• The degree of comfort, reassurance, and confidence derived from acquiring peer feedback.
• The subjective importance assigned to the viewpoints and preferences of others during the decision-making process.

The Independence of Leadership and Seeking

A central theoretical premise confirmed by the OL-OS is that opinion leadership and opinion seeking are positively, moderately correlated (typically ranging from r = 0.15 to 0.35) rather than mutually exclusive. Because both behaviors stem from an underlying passion for, interest in, and enduring involvement with the product category, passionate consumers frequently seek out opinions from other knowledgeable peers even as they provide advice to less experienced individuals. Thus, treating them as orthogonal dimensions allows researchers to identify four distinct consumer profiles:

1. Market Mavens / Information Hubs (High OL, High OS): Deeply involved individuals who continuously collect information from their networks while actively disseminating recommendations.
2. Pure Opinion Leaders (High OL, Low OS): Confident innovators and authorities who shape peer opinions but rely primarily on their own internal judgment or mass media sources.
3. Pure Opinion Seekers (Low OL, High OS): Consumers who lack domain-specific confidence and actively rely on others to guide their adoption choices.
4. Passive Consumers (Low OL, Low OS): Individuals detached from the domain who neither give nor solicit guidance within their peer networks.

Theoretical Framework

The Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale is embedded within several major social scientific paradigms that explain how information, influence, and social validation operate across interpersonal networks.

The Two-Step Flow and Multi-Step Flow Models of Communication

The foundational bedrock of opinion leadership research originates in the seminal sociological studies conducted by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet (1944) in The People’s Choice, and later formalized by Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld (1955) in Personal Influence. These theorists formulated the Two-Step Flow of Communication hypothesis, demonstrating that ideas often flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and subsequently from these influential individuals to the less active sections of the population.

Subsequent scholarship expanded this perspective into a Multi-Step Flow Model, acknowledging that information cascades through complex, multidirectional social networks. Flynn, Goldsmith, and Eastman (1996) leveraged this framework by operationalizing not merely the top-down dissemination of advice (leadership), but also the bottom-up or lateral pull of advice (seeking). By capturing both ends of the communicative exchange, the OL-OS aligns with modern network paradigms that view interpersonal influence as transactional, reciprocal, and dynamic.

Diffusion of Innovations Theory

The scale directly interfaces with Everett M. Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory (1962, 1995). Rogers posited that the spread of new ideas, products, and practices follows an S-shaped curve over time, mediated by distinct adopter categories: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards. Within Rogers’ model, opinion leadership is concentrated heavily among Early Adopters, who serve as social role models, possess high social status, and maintain wide network interconnectedness.

Rogers emphasized that while innovators may be perceived as eccentric or overly adventurous, opinion leaders are integrated into the social system and embody its norms, granting them the social legitimacy required to trigger a diffusion tipping point. Conversely, opinion seeking represents the primary communication behavior characterizing the Early and Late Majorities, who require reassurance and social proof before allocating resources toward an unfamiliar innovation.

Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory

The construct of opinion seeking finds deep theoretical grounding in Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory (1954). Festinger postulated that human beings possess an innate drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities. When objective, non-social standards are unavailable—as is common when evaluating aesthetic goods, lifestyle trends, or novel consumer products—individuals evaluate their opinions by comparing them with the opinions of others. Opinion seekers systematically engage in social comparison to validate their subjective tastes, minimize the threat of post-purchase regret, and foster social belonging.

Involvement and Knowledge Theory

From a consumer information-processing perspective, the OL-OS draws upon the distinction between situational involvement (temporary arousal caused by an immediate purchase necessity) and enduring involvement (an ongoing, chronic baseline of interest and emotional attachment to a product class). Flynn et al. demonstrated that enduring involvement serves as the primary psychological engine fueling both opinion leadership and opinion seeking. High enduring involvement motivates continuous information acquisition, rendering the consumer an expert (opinion leader) who simultaneously enjoys discussing and comparing product attributes with other enthusiasts (opinion seeker).

Validity

The psychometric integrity of the OL-OS was established through an extensive validation program spanning five independent empirical studies involving a total of N = 1,128 participants across three distinct product domains (rock music, fashion clothing, and green/environmentally friendly consumer products). The authors evaluated multiple forms of construct validity using rigorous structural and multivariate procedures.

Unidimensionality and Factorial Validity

Using structural equation modeling (SEM) via LISREL, Flynn et al. evaluated the structural validity of each 6-item subscale. Across all studies, confirmatory factor analyses verified that each subscale conformed to a strict unidimensional model. Factor loadings were uniformly high, statistically significant (p < 0.001), and free of substantial cross-loadings or anomalous error covariances, demonstrating that the items within each subscale reflect a single underlying common factor.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity evaluates whether a scale correlates strongly with preexisting, validated measures of the same or conceptually identical constructs. Flynn et al. administered the Opinion Leadership subscale alongside the widely recognized King and Summers (1970) Opinion Leadership Scale. Across validation samples, the correlation between the two instruments was r = 0.72 (p < 0.001). This large coefficient confirms that the 6-item OL subscale accurately captures the established domain of opinion leadership while utilizing a far more psychometrically consistent, streamlined Likert format.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was demonstrated across multiple levels:

• Separation between OL and OS: Across all five studies, the latent correlation between Opinion Leadership and Opinion Seeking remained low to moderate, consistently falling between r = 0.15 and r = 0.35. When tested against alternative nested models in SEM where the correlation between OL and OS was constrained to unity (1.0), the unconstrained two-factor models yielded significantly superior chi-square fit statistics (Δχ² significant at p < 0.001). This firmly demonstrates that leadership and seeking are distinct constructs rather than inverse poles of one continuum.
• Discriminant validity against social desirability: Scale items demonstrated negligible correlations with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, confirming that self-reported leadership and seeking scores are not artifacts of social posturing or impression management.

Nomological and Criterion-Related Validity

Nomological validity was substantiated by examining the scale’s relationships with theoretically related constructs within a broader conceptual network:

• Perceived and Objective Knowledge: OL exhibited strong, positive correlations with self-perceived domain knowledge (typically r = 0.55 to 0.68), whereas OS exhibited weaker or non-significant correlations with self-perceived knowledge, consistent with theoretical expectations.
• Consumer Innovativeness: OL correlated robustly with domain-specific consumer innovativeness (r = 0.50 to 0.65), demonstrating that opinion leaders are early purchasers who embrace new trends.
• Enduring Involvement: Both OL and OS demonstrated statistically significant positive correlations with enduring product involvement, confirming that high personal interest drives both advice giving and advice seeking.
• Predictive Behavioral Outcomes: Both subscales significantly predicted self-reported and observed consumer behaviors, including frequency of shopping trips, volume of music purchases, fashion expenditure, and active purchasing of environmentally friendly consumer packaged goods.

Reliability

The reliability of the Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale has been comprehensively demonstrated through internal consistency analyses and temporal stability assessments across diverse demographic groups and product environments.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha (α) across all five validation samples described in the seminal 1996 publication. The observed alpha values substantially exceeded the classical psychometric benchmark of 0.70 recommended by Nunnally for basic research, as well as the stricter standard of 0.80:

• Opinion Leadership Subscale: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.78 to 0.93 across all samples. Corrected item-to-total correlations for the six OL items consistently ranged between 0.52 and 0.81, indicating robust item homogeneity without excessive redundancy.
• Opinion Seeking Subscale: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.81 to 0.93 across all samples. Corrected item-to-total correlations for the six OS items consistently ranged between 0.55 and 0.83.

Test-Retest Reliability (Temporal Stability)

To establish that the OL-OS measures stable behavioral tendencies rather than transient situational moods, a test-retest study was executed with a subsample of n = 127 respondents over a four-week time interval. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between Time 1 and Time 2 scores demonstrated impressive stability:

• Opinion Leadership: r = 0.82 (p < 0.001)
• Opinion Seeking: r = 0.75 (p < 0.001)

These coefficients confirm that individual scores on both subscales remain remarkably stable over time, supporting their utility in longitudinal research and pre-test/post-test experimental designs.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the OL-OS was evaluated through a combination of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) during the initial item pool purification phase and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) within a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) framework during the formal validation phases.

Initial Exploratory Factor Analysis

During the generation phase, an initial pool of candidate items reflecting leadership and seeking was administered to consumer samples. Principal Axis Factoring with oblique (Promax) rotation consistently yielded a clear, clean two-factor solution corresponding directly to the theoretical dimensions of Opinion Leadership and Opinion Seeking. Items exhibiting low primary factor loadings (< 0.50), high cross-loadings (> 0.30 on the secondary factor), or poor communalities were systematically eliminated, resulting in the final, optimized set of 12 items (6 items per subscale).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Model Fit

In the primary validation studies (N = 1,128 across multiple samples), maximum likelihood CFA was conducted using LISREL to assess the factorial validity of the two-factor measurement model. Across product domains (rock music, fashion, green products), the hypothesized two-factor structure demonstrated exceptional fit to the empirical data:

• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI): Consistently ranged between 0.92 and 0.97 across samples.
• Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index (AGFI): Consistently exceeded 0.90, demonstrating robust parsimony.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Ranged from 0.94 to 0.98, well above the conventional 0.90 threshold.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Consistently fell between 0.041 and 0.065, indicating close model fit with low residual error.
• Standardized Factor Loadings (λ): All six OL items exhibited standardized loadings ranging from 0.62 to 0.88 on their latent factor. All six OS items exhibited standardized loadings ranging from 0.64 to 0.87 on their latent factor. Every factor loading was statistically significant at the t > 12.0 (p < 0.001) level.

Comparative model testing confirmed that the hypothesized two-dimensional oblique model was statistically superior to a unidimensional model where all 12 items loaded onto a single general “interaction” factor, confirming that leadership and seeking are psychometrically discrete constructs.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale is a domain-adaptable, self-report survey instrument. The parameters of the instrument are structured as follows:

• Instrument Name: Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale (OL-OS)
• Instrument Type: Standardized self-report rating scale
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (general consumer populations, specialized professional groups, or target user segments)
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire, online web survey, or computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI)
• Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes
• Total Item Count: 12 items total, partitioned into two distinct 6-item subscales:
  • Opinion Leadership (OL): 6 items (Items 1 through 6)
  • Opinion Seeking (OS): 6 items (Items 7 through 12)
• Contextual Adaptation: Researchers must replace the placeholder text [product category] with the exact domain, brand, product class, service, or issue being investigated (e.g., “smartphones”, “electric vehicles”, “skincare products”, “sustainable fashion”, “investment strategies”).
• Response Format: Standard 7-point Likert-type scale scored from 1 to 7:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Neither agree nor disagree (Neutral)
  • 5 = Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly agree
• Scoring and Transformation Rules:
  • Reverse Scoring: Prior to computing composite scores, reverse-score negative items by subtracting the raw response from 8 (i.e., New Score = 8 – Raw Score):
    • Opinion Leadership subscale: Reverse score Item 1, Item 2, and Item 3.
    • Opinion Seeking subscale: Reverse score Item 8, Item 9, and Item 12 (corresponding to items 2, 3, and 6 within the OS subscale).
  • Subscale Score Calculation: Calculate separate scores for Opinion Leadership and Opinion Seeking. Do not sum all 12 items into a single global score. Subscale scores can be computed either as:
    • Summed Score: Summing the 6 items for each subscale yields a theoretical range from 6 to 42 points per subscale.
    • Mean Score: Averaging the 6 items for each subscale yields a mean score ranging from 1.00 to 7.00, preserving the original scale metric.
  • Interpretation: Higher scores reflect greater levels of domain-specific opinion leadership or opinion seeking, respectively. Median splits or cluster analyses can be performed on the two dimensions to categorize respondents into four communication quadrants: Information Hubs/Mavens (High OL, High OS), Pure Leaders (High OL, Low OS), Pure Seekers (Low OL, High OS), and Passives (Low OL, Low OS).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Opinion Leaders and Opinion Seekers Scale was published in 1996 in the peer-reviewed journal Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (Volume 24, Issue 2, pages 137–147) by Sage Publications on behalf of the Academy of Marketing Science.

The scale is widely recognized in academic literature as an open-access psychometric instrument for non-commercial educational, scientific, and scholarly research purposes. Academic researchers, university faculty, and graduate students may utilize and adapt the scale without paying licensing fees or securing formal written permission, provided that full bibliographic attribution is granted to the original authors (Flynn, Goldsmith, & Eastman, 1996). Commercial entities, market research agencies conducting proprietary client work, or publishers seeking to reproduce the scale within commercial anthologies should consult Sage Publications’ permissions department to ensure compliance with copyright regulations.

References

• Childers, T. L. (1986). Assessment of the psychometric properties of an opinion leadership scale. Journal of Marketing Research, 23(2), 184–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378602300209
• Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202
• Flynn, L. R., Goldsmith, R. E., & Eastman, J. K. (1996). Opinion leaders and opinion seekers: Two new measurement scales. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 24(2), 137–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092070396242004
• Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications. Free Press.
• King, C. W., & Summers, J. O. (1970). Overlap of opinion leadership across consumer product categories. Journal of Marketing Research, 7(1), 43–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377000700106
• Lazarsfeld, P. F., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1944). The people’s choice: How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign. Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). Free Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)