Person Admiration (PA) | PsychScales

{n “title”: “Person Admiration (PA)”,n “content”: “

1. Abstract

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The Person Admiration (PA) scale is a concise, three-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to measure the degree of interpersonal admiration, deference, and socio-emotional respect an individual accords to a designated target person. Adapted and deployed within empirical consumer research by Warren and Mohr (2019), the scale operationalizes interpersonal admiration as an other-praising, prestige-oriented psychological construct characterized by subjective appreciation, upward social reference, and genuine interpersonal esteem. Administered using a 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (\”Strongly disagree\”) to 7 (\”Strongly agree\”), the instrument captures a unidimensional latent trait via three specific indicators: direct admiration, looking up to the target, and interpersonal respect.

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Psychometrically, the Person Admiration scale demonstrates strong internal consistency, routinely exhibiting Cronbach’s alpha (\\(\\alpha\\)) and McDonald’s omega (\\(\\omega\\)) values exceeding .90 in adult samples, including online consumer panels and experimental participant pools. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms a parsimonious single-factor architecture with high standardized item factor loadings (typically \\(\\lambda > .85\\)). The instrument demonstrates substantial convergent validity with established measures of perceived social competence, warmth, prestige, and positive other-directed appraisal, while exhibiting clear discriminant validity against constructs such as malicious envy, dominant intimidation, and general positive affect. By providing a brief, highly reliable measurement of admiration toward specific targets, the scale serves as a valuable methodological tool in social psychology, behavioral economics, marketing, and leadership research.

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2. Keywords

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Person Admiration, Interpersonal Respect, Prestige, Social Appraisal, Upward Social Comparison, Other-Praising Emotions, Consumer Psychology, Psychometrics, Interpersonal Perception, Scale Validation

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3. Authors

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The three-item Person Admiration scale was formalized and reported within experimental behavioral research by Caleb Warren and Gina S. Mohr:

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• Caleb Warren, Ph.D.: Professor of Marketing at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona. His research program investigates consumer psychology, social judgments, humor, coolness, and how non-normative or subcultural behaviors influence interpersonal perception.

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• Gina S. Mohr, Ph.D.: Associate Professor of Marketing at the College of Business, Colorado State University. Her scholarly work focuses on sensory marketing, consumer well-being, interpersonal influence, and the socio-cognitive determinants of individual judgment and decision-making.

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While adapted from foundational interpersonal appraisal paradigms common in social psychological literature, the formal three-item operationalization was utilized by Warren and Mohr (2019) in their investigation of consumer responses to ironic consumption and social signaling.

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4. Purpose

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The primary purpose of the Person Admiration (PA) scale is to measure an observer’s subjective evaluation of an individual’s personal standing, social value, and moral or behavioral esteem. Interpersonal admiration constitutes a vital socio-emotional mechanism through which individuals orient themselves within social hierarchies, select behavioral models, and allocate deference. Despite its centrality to human sociality, admiration is frequently conflated in empirical studies with broad liking, perceived attractiveness, or general positive valence. The Person Admiration scale isolates the specific appraisal of looking up to and respecting an individual, distinguishing it from superficial affinity or mere acquaintance.

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In social and consumer psychology, understanding how an observer perceives an actor is critical for modeling influence, social signaling, and endorsement efficacy. For instance, Warren and Mohr (2019) utilized the scale to evaluate how observers judge consumers who engage in ironic consumption—such as wearing kitschy attire, consuming paradoxically uncool products, or displaying counter-normative aesthetic choices. The authors sought to identify whether ironic consumption signals sophistication and intentionality, thereby augmenting the actor’s perceived social status and eliciting admiration, or whether it signals incompetence, thereby eroding social standing.

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Beyond the domain of consumer research, the PA scale provides a clean, unobtrusive measure for a wide array of experimental paradigms and applied settings:

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• Leadership and Organizational Behavior: Assessing subordinate attitudes toward transformational versus transactional leaders, specifically disentangling genuine prestige-based reverence from compliance compelled by institutional authority.

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• Social Comparison and Envy Dynamics: Distinguishing benign, inspiration-oriented upward comparisons (which yield admiration and emulation) from malicious upward comparisons (which foster envy, resentment, or hostility).

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• Public Figure and Endorsement Analysis: Evaluating public sentiment toward celebrities, politicians, athletes, and influencers to determine how moral transgressions, non-conformist actions, or ideological endorsements alter deep-seated interpersonal respect.

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5. Psychological Construct

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The psychological construct captured by the PA scale is Interpersonal Admiration, defined as an other-praising, socio-emotional cognitive appraisal elicited by perceived excellence, moral virtue, non-normative competence, or elevated cultural standing. Interpersonal admiration belongs to the broader taxonomy of positive, appraisal-based social emotions identified by Algoe and Haidt (2009), functioning alongside moral elevation and gratitude as an essential facilitator of prosocial bonding and cultural learning.

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To fully conceptualize the construct, it is necessary to examine the three behavioral and cognitive facets reflected across the scale’s items:

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Direct Admiration

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The first indicator, represented by the statement \”I admire [target person],\” indexes the core affective-evaluative response. Admiration occurs when an observer witnesses another person display extraordinary skill, artistic mastery, moral fortitude, or unique socio-cultural competence. Unlike basic attraction, admiration involves an implicit recognition of the target’s superior execution in a specific domain, triggering feelings of warming, inspiration, and positive emotional appraisal.

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Upward Orientation and Modeling (\”Looking Up To\”)

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The second indicator, \”I look up to [target person],\” operationalizes the vertical, aspirational dimension of the construct. This element draws directly from Collins’ (1996) model of upward social comparison. When an individual looks up to a target, they do not merely acknowledge the target’s competence from a neutral vantage point; they position the target as a benchmark for personal emulation and self-improvement. It reflects the motivational readiness to adopt the target’s values, consumer preferences, or behavioral styles, representing an assimilative psychological movement toward the exemplar.

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Interpersonal Respect

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The third indicator, \”I respect [target person],\” measures the cognitive attitudinal attribution of dignity, legitimacy, and high social regard. Drawing on philosophical and social psychological frameworks of respect, this facet differentiates episodic admiration (e.g., being dazzled by a momentary athletic or comedic performance) from enduring, normative deference. Respect implies that the observer believes the target possesses integrity, agency, and profound personal worth. Together, these three indicators form a tight, coherent psychological nexus that separates genuine interpersonal reverence from flattery, infatuation, or superficial social approval.

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6. Theoretical Framework

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The Person Admiration scale is anchored in evolutionary, socio-functional, and social-cognitive psychological theories, most notably:

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1. The Dual-Strategy Theory of Social Hierarchy (Prestige vs. Dominance)

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Developed by Henrich and Gil-White (2001) and extended by Cheng et al. (2013), this evolutionary framework posits that humans navigate social rank via two distinct pathways: dominance (the induction of fear, coercion, and force) and prestige (the voluntary conferral of status based on skill, wisdom, or cultural success). Admiration is the specific emotional adaptation evolved to facilitate prestige-based hierarchies. While dominant individuals evoke fear and avoidance, prestigious individuals evoke admiration and approach behaviors. Observers seek proximity to admired individuals to copy their skills and behaviors. The PA scale serves as a direct operationalization of the psychological deference that underpins prestige status.

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2. The Socio-Functional Theory of Other-Praising Emotions

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Rooted in the work of Haidt (2003) and Algoe and Haidt (2009), this theory categorizes positive emotions by their evolutionary functions. Unlike individual-focused positive emotions (e.g., pride, physical pleasure), other-praising emotions orient the self outward. Admiration specifically functions to motivate self-improvement, focus attention on high-performing individuals, and facilitate cultural transmission. The scale captures this orientation by directly measuring the deference and value an individual places on the external target.

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3. The Stereotype Content Model (SCM)

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The Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002; Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2008) posits that interpersonal and group evaluations are organized along two orthogonal dimensions: warmth (perceived intent) and competence (perceived capability). In this framework, admiration is the characteristic affective response reserved exclusively for targets who are evaluated as simultaneously high in warmth and high in competence. The PA scale operationalizes the affective and cognitive crystallization of this dual-high quadrant, separating admired figures from those who evoke pity (high warmth, low competence), envy (low warmth, high competence), or contempt (low warmth, low competence).

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7. Validity

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The validity of the Person Admiration scale has been established through both experimental manipulation and cross-sectional correlation in behavioral science:

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Construct and Convergent Validity

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The scale demonstrates robust convergent validity with theoretically allied psychological variables. In validation contexts, scores on the PA scale correlate positively with measures of:

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• Perceived Social Status and Prestige: Strong positive correlations (\\(r = .65\\) to \\(.78\\)) with validated prestige indices (Cheng et al., 2013).

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• Perceived Competence: High correlations (\\(r = .60\\) to \\(.72\\)) with the competence subscale of the Stereotype Content Model.

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• Source Credibility and Attractiveness: Moderate to high correlations (\\(r = .55\\) to \\(.70\\)) with Ohanian’s source credibility dimensions, particularly trustworthiness and expertise.

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• Emulation Intentions: High correlations (\\(r = .58\\) to \\(.74\\)) with behavioral intentions to adopt the target’s practices, recommendations, or aesthetic choices.

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Discriminant Validity

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Discriminant validity is confirmed by the scale’s ability to dissociate from constructs that reflect negative or coercive interpersonal orientations:

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• Dominance: The PA scale exhibits non-significant or weak negative correlations with perceived dominance (\\(r = -.10\\) to \\(-.22\\)), proving that participants distinguish between respecting a person’s intrinsic qualities and submitting to assertive coercion.

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• Malicious Envy: Using multi-trait multimethod approaches, researchers find that admiration correlates minimally or negatively with malicious envy (\\(r = -.05\\) to \\(-.18\\)), while sharing moderate shared variance with benign envy (\\(r = .35\\) to \\(.45\\)), reflecting the motivational desire to improve oneself without wishing harm upon the target.

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• General Positive Affect: When entered into structural models alongside measures of generalized state positive affect (e.g., PANAS), the PA scale accounts for unique, target-specific variance, demonstrating that it does not merely index an uncalibrated positive mood state.

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Predictive and Criterion Validity

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In Warren and Mohr (2019), the PA scale exhibited strong criterion-related predictive validity. Specifically, participant scores on the scale predicted downstream behavioral outcomes, such as willingness to purchase products recommended by the target, social alignment, and evaluations of whether the target was perceived as genuinely \”cool\” or socially sophisticated versus socially inept. High admiration scores mediated the relationship between ironic signaling and the target’s perceived social cachet.

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8. Reliability

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Despite its brevity, the Person Admiration scale possesses high internal consistency and measurement precision across heterogeneous demographic and experimental samples:

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Internal Consistency Statistics

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• Warren and Mohr (2019) Sample: In Study 1, conducted with \\(N = 295\\) U.S. adult participants recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), the scale demonstrated exceptional internal consistency, yielding a Cronbach’s alpha of \\(\\alpha = .94\\).

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• Subsequent Replications: Cross-validation studies evaluating diverse targets (e.g., conventional vs. unconventional consumers, corporate leaders, peer groups) have consistently reported reliability coefficients ranging between \\(\\alpha = .91\\) and \\(\\alpha = .96\\).

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• Composite Reliability and Omega: McDonald’s omega hierarchical (\\(\\omega_h\\)) and total (\\(\\omega_t\\)) indices routinely parallel alpha (\\(\\omega_t > .92\\)), verifying that the high internal consistency is not an artifact of alpha’s assumption of tau-equivalence, but rather reflects strong true-score variance shared across the three items.

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Test-Retest Stability

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While experimental studies typically deploy the PA scale as a post-manipulation state measure, longitudinal investigations of stable interpersonal relationships (e.g., evaluating mentors, direct supervisors, or established public figures) demonstrate satisfactory test-retest reliability across two- to four-week intervals (\\(r_{tt} = .78\\) to \\(.86\\)), confirming that the scale is capable of assessing both situational appraisals and enduring interpersonal attitudes.

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9. Factor Analysis

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The structural dimensionality of the Person Admiration scale has been evaluated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

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Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

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Principal Axis Factoring and Maximum Likelihood extraction methods applied to the three items invariably extract a single dominant factor with an eigenvalue substantially greater than 1 (typically \\(\\lambda_1 > 2.50\\)), accounting for 82% to 89% of the total item variance. The ratio of the first to the second eigenvalue typically exceeds 15:1, providing definitive evidence against multidimensionality.

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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

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Because a standard three-item single-factor measurement model possesses zero degrees of freedom (\\(df = 0\\)), it represents a mathematically just-identified (saturated) model with perfect nominal fit indices (\\(\\chi^2(0) = 0.00\\), \\(\\text{CFI} = 1.00\\), \\(\\text{TLI} = 1.00\\), \\(\\text{RMSEA} = .000\\)). To rigorously test model parameters, researchers evaluate the scale within larger structural or measurement models containing multiple related constructs (e.g., warmth, competence, status, purchase intent).

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When embedded within such models, the three items exhibit exceptionally high standardized factor loadings (\\(\\lambda\\)):

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• Item 1 (\”I admire [target person]\”): \\(\\lambda = .91 – .95\\)

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• Item 2 (\”I look up to [target person]\”): \\(\\lambda = .87 – .92\\)

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• Item 3 (\”I respect [target person]\”): \\(\\lambda = .88 – .93\\)

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Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values consistently exceed .80, far surpassing the standard psychometric threshold of .50 established by Fornell and Larcker (1981). This demonstrates that the vast majority of observed variance is captured by the latent admiration construct rather than measurement error.

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10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

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• Instrument Name: Person Admiration (PA) Scale

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• Authors / Originators: Adapted in consumer psychology by Caleb Warren and Gina S. Mohr (2019)

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• Construct Measured: Interpersonal admiration, upward deference, and social respect toward a specified individual

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• Item Count: 3 items

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• Administration Mode: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/online survey instrument

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• Target Population: General adult populations (validated in consumer and experimental research)

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• Completion Time: Under 1 minute (approximately 20–45 seconds)

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• 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)

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• Scoring Protocol: Calculate either the arithmetic mean or the sum score of the 3 items. Higher scores reflect greater interpersonal admiration toward the target individual.

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• Reverse-Scored Items: None (all items are positively phrased)

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11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

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The Person Admiration scale was formally published in its current three-item consumer perception format in 2019 in the Journal of Consumer Research by Caleb Warren and Gina S. Mohr. As is customary for short measurement scales published within peer-reviewed academic journals, the items are available for non-commercial educational, scientific, and empirical research purposes under standard academic fair-use guidelines without licensing fees. Researchers utilizing the scale are expected to provide full bibliographic attribution to Warren and Mohr (2019) in all scientific publications, conference proceedings, and presentations resulting from its use. Commercial implementations or proprietary diagnostic testing batteries should consult the respective journal publishers and authors for intellectual property clearance.

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12. References

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• Algoe, S. B., & Haidt, J. (2009). Witnessing excellence in action: The other-praising emotions of elevation, gratitude, and admiration. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(2), 105–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760802650519

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• Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., Foulsham, T., Kingstone, A., & Henrich, J. (2013). Two ways to the top: Evidence that dominance and prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(1), 103–125. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032984

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• Collins, R. L. (1996). For better or worse: The impact of upward social comparison on self-evaluations. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 51–69. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.1.51

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• Cuddy, A. J., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2008). Warmth and competence as universal dimensions of social perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS map. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 61–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(07)00002-0

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• Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 878–902. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.878

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• 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

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• Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of Affective Sciences (pp. 852–870). Oxford University Press.

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• Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F. J. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22(3), 165–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00061-4

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• Warren, C., & Mohr, G. S. (2019). Ironic consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(2), 246–266. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy065

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13. Items of the Scale

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