Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES)

1. Abstract

The Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) is a widely utilized psychometric instrument developed by W. Keith Campbell, Amy M. Bonacci, Jeremy Shelton, Julie Juola Exline, and Brad J. Bushman (2004) to quantify psychological entitlement—the pervasive, stable personality disposition characterized by the belief that one deserves more, and is entitled to more positive outcomes and special treatment, than other people. Comprising 9 self-report items evaluated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strong disagreement) to 7 (strong agreement), the PES captures a unidimensional psychological construct that is conceptually related to, yet empirically distinguishable from, grandiose narcissism, self-esteem, locus of control, and social desirability. Extensive psychometric evaluations across normative, student, and organizational populations demonstrate that the PES possesses exceptional internal consistency reliability (with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely falling between α = .85 and α = .89) and robust temporal stability over intervals ranging from two weeks to several months (test-retest correlations between r = .70 and r = .80).

Factor analytic investigations—spanning both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)—consistently affirm a unifactorial structure exhibiting excellent goodness-of-fit indices (CFI > .95, TLI > .94, RMSEA < .06). Validity studies have verified substantial convergent validity with narcissistic exploitation and exhibitionism, as well as discriminant validity against global self-esteem and neuroticism. High scores on the PES significantly predict a multitude of interpersonal, ethical, and consumer behaviors, including selfish resource allocation in social dilemmas, hostility following ego threats, romantic relational infidelity, unethical organizational conduct, academic entitlement, aggressive consumer complaint behaviors, and disproportionate intolerance toward service failures. The PES remains the definitive psychometric standard in clinical, social, personality, organizational, and consumer psychology for investigating entitlement as an independent trait.

2. Keywords

Psychological Entitlement Scale, psychological entitlement, narcissism, personality assessment, psychometrics, social dilemma, self-deservingness, interpersonal conflict, consumer behavior, construct validity, factor analysis, trait entitlement

3. Authors

The Psychological Entitlement Scale was developed and standardized by an interdisciplinary team of prominent personality, social, and developmental psychologists:

• W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. A leading international authority on narcissism, egocentrism, and personality processes. E-mail: [email protected].
• Amy M. Bonacci, Ph.D. — Researcher in social psychology, formerly affiliated with Case Western Reserve University and the University of Georgia. Specializes in social cognition and aggressive behavior.
• Jeremy Shelton, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX, USA. Focuses on interpersonal dynamics and personality assessment.
• Julie Juola Exline, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychological Sciences, Department of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA. Renowned for empirical investigations on forgiveness, interpersonal hurt, spiritual struggles, and entitlement. E-mail: [email protected].
• Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D. — Professor of Communication and Rinehart Chair of Mass Communication, School of Communication and Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. Leading scholar in aggression, human conflict, and media effects. E-mail: [email protected].

4. Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) is to provide a concise, psychometrically robust, and theoretically grounded measurement tool to isolate and quantify individual differences in generalized psychological entitlement. Prior to the formal operationalization of the PES by Campbell and colleagues in 2004, entitlement was predominantly assessed as an implicit subfacet embedded within broader multidimensional inventories of pathological personality, most notably the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) developed by Raskin and Terry (1988). However, within the NPI, entitlement items were conflated with distinct narcissistic dimensions such as leadership, vanity, exhibitionism, superiority, and authority. This conceptual and empirical conflation made it methodologically challenging for behavioral researchers to determine whether observed interpersonal friction, ethical transgressions, or relational conflicts were driven specifically by an exaggerated sense of deservingness or by vanity, extraversion, and exhibitionism.

The PES fulfills an imperative clinical, academic, and organizational need by establishing entitlement as a distinct, standalone psychological construct. Theoretically, entitlement is defined as a stable cognitive-affective schema through which an individual systematically overestimates what is rightfully owed to them by society, institutions, and personal relationships, regardless of their actual contributions, merits, or reciprocal obligations. The scale explicitly measures this generalized sense of superior desert, distinct from legitimate claims based on contract, meritocracy, or legal rights.

In applied organizational psychology, the PES serves as an indispensable tool for diagnosing workplace counterproductive behavior. Employees exhibiting high psychological entitlement display diminished organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), elevated rates of interpersonal deviance, unrealistic salary and promotional expectations, toxic management styles, and pervasive tendencies to blame colleagues or supervisors for objective career deficits. In educational settings, the PES facilitates the study of “academic entitlement”—the growing student expectation that high grades and institutional accommodations should be awarded based on tuition payment or minimal participation rather than rigorous academic mastery.

In consumer psychology and market research, the scale has proven vital for dissecting the mechanisms of modern consumer behavior. Highly entitled consumers exhibit demanding attitudes within service ecosystems, elevated propensities for public complaint and vindictive negative word-of-mouth following minor service disruptions, an inflated need for luxury branding as symbolic validation of personal status, and acute outrage toward standard pricing adjustments. Consequently, the PES enables social scientists to isolate the structural impact of subjective deservingness across divergent human environments.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the PES is psychological entitlement. Campbell et al. (2004) conceptualize this construct as a generalized, pervasive, and persistent belief that an individual is inherently more deserving of positive outcomes, resources, honors, forgiveness, and accommodations than others are. Importantly, psychological entitlement is characterized by several core psychological properties:

5.1 Unconditional Self-Deservingness

Unlike deservedness that emerges as a consequence of arduous effort, demonstrated talent, moral virtue, or contractual reciprocity, psychological entitlement is unconditional. The entitled individual operates under the foundational premise that their superior worth is self-evident and axiomatic. When confronting positive life events, individuals with elevated entitlement interpret these outcomes not as fortunate blessings or earned rewards, but as the natural fulfillment of what was fundamentally owed to them by the universe.

5.2 Interpersonal Disregard and Asymmetry

A defining hallmark of psychological entitlement is its relational asymmetry. Entitled cognition is intrinsically comparative and zero-sum: the self is situated above the collective. This structural asymmetry leads to chronic insensitivity toward the needs, rights, and boundaries of others. In interpersonal exchanges, high scorers prioritize personal gratification and demand unilateral accommodations, while viewing reciprocal obligations as oppressive or trivial. When interacting with romantic partners, peers, or colleagues, high entitlement manifests as an expectation of forgiveness for personal blunders accompanied by zero tolerance for the transgressions of others.

5.3 Grandiose Expectations vs. Vulnerable Entitlement

Contemporary personality research distinguishes between grandiose entitlement—which is characterized by assertive demands, high self-esteem, active exploitation, and public displays of confidence—and vulnerable entitlement, which manifests as defensive hostility, perceived victimization, chronic resentment, and frustration that the world has failed to recognize one’s specialness. The PES primarily measures the core, shared cognitive core of grandiose entitlement, reflecting assertive claims to superior treatment (e.g., “Things should go my way”, “I demand the best because I’m worth it”). However, because unfulfilled entitlement inevitably breeds distress, prolonged frustration of these expectations frequently triggers the depressive and angry features associated with vulnerable narcissism.

5.4 Cognitive-Affective Reactivity to Frustration

When the environment refuses to validate an individual’s sense of entitlement—such as receiving an average performance appraisal, being denied a loan, waiting in a service line, or experiencing social rejection—the psychological response is acute ego threat. The cognitive schema of entitlement interprets parity as an unjust injury. Consequently, high scores on this construct are intimately correlated with intense negative affect, narcissistic rage, vindictive retaliation, cognitive rumination, and aggressive externalization of blame.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework underpinning the Psychological Entitlement Scale is deeply anchored in psychodynamic personality theory, social exchange theory, equity theory, and evolutionary perspectives on social hierarchy.

6.1 Psychodynamic and Social-Personality Foundations

Historically, psychodynamic theorists such as Sigmund Freud identified entitlement in his conceptualization of the “exceptions”—individuals who believe that past suffering, unique gifts, or innate superiority absolve them from obeying standard societal rules. Subsequent self-psychologists, most notably Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg, articulated entitlement as a central manifestation of pathological narcissism, stemming from developmental arrest in the archaic grandiose self or compensatory defensive maneuvering against latent feelings of shame, defectiveness, and inferiority. Campbell et al. (2004) distilled these psychodynamic insights into a trait-based social-personality paradigm, positing that entitlement functions as a cognitive lens that persistently distorts social reality, leading the individual to appraise interpersonal situations through the prism of personal privilege.

6.2 Equity Theory and Social Exchange

The PES draws heavily upon Adams’ (1965) Equity Theory, which posits that individuals evaluate the fairness of their relationships by comparing the ratio of their personal inputs to outcomes against the input-to-outcome ratio of reference others. Under normative conditions, equity distress emerges when individuals perceive an imbalance (under-benefited or over-benefited). However, psychological entitlement profoundly skews this calculation. The entitled individual operates with an internalized standard wherein equity is only achieved when their outcomes grossly exceed their inputs relative to peers. A fair, equal distribution is perceived by an entitled person as an act of deprivation or systemic unfairness, because their subjective baseline assumes an entitlement to unearned surpluses.

6.3 Social Dilemmas and Evolutionary Cheating

From an evolutionary and game-theoretic standpoint, psychological entitlement can be understood as an individual strategy of social “free-riding” or “cheating.” In collective resource dilemmas (such as the Tragedy of the Commons), evolutionary stability requires individuals to constrain personal harvesting to preserve long-term communal assets. Campbell et al. (2004) specifically tested the PES within ecological commons dilemmas (such as managing timber reserves over multiple harvest seasons). Their theoretical model predicted—and empirical observations confirmed—that highly entitled individuals intentionally overharvest shared resources, prioritizing immediate self-gain despite knowing that their behavior guarantees the systemic collapse of the collective reserve. The PES quantifies the psychological engine of this self-centered resource appropriation.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Psychological Entitlement Scale has been rigorously corroborated through multiple validation studies across diverse research cohorts.

7.1 Construct and Convergent Validity

During the initial validation procedures conducted by Campbell et al. (2004), the PES demonstrated robust convergent validity with established personality constructs. As theoretically anticipated, the PES exhibited strong positive correlations with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), particularly the Entitlement subscale (r values typically between .45 and .60) and the Exploitativeness subscale (r ≈ .40 to .52). Moderate correlations were observed with the overarching NPI total score (r ≈ .35 to .48). Within the Five-Factor Model of personality, the PES consistently correlates negatively with Agreeableness (ranging from r = -.25 to r = -.40), capturing the antagonistic, unempathetic, and selfish core of the entitled schema. PES scores also demonstrate inverse relationships with dispositional empathy, perspective-taking (Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index, r ≈ -.25), and moral identity centrality.

7.2 Discriminant Validity

Crucially, Campbell et al. (2004) successfully decoupled psychological entitlement from global self-esteem and general psychological well-being. Correlations between the PES and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) are consistently modest (rarely exceeding r = .15 to .20), demonstrating that possessing a positive view of one’s capabilities and self-worth does not inherently dictate an antagonistic expectation of superior societal treatment. Furthermore, the PES shows near-zero correlations with measures of social desirability response sets (such as the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, r ≈ -.05 to .08), demonstrating that high PES scores are not artifacts of impression management—in fact, entitled individuals candidly endorse selfish attitudes without typical social sensitivity.

7.3 Predictive and Behavioral Validity

The behavioral validity of the PES has been extensively verified across laboratory, organizational, and consumer contexts:

• Aggression and Hostility: In laboratory experiments using competitive reaction-time paradigms with noise blasts, high PES individuals reacted with significantly elevated physical aggression following ego threat or mild insult compared to low scorers.
• Social Dilemmas: In computerized commons dilemma simulations, PES scores significantly predicted rapid resource depletion and competitive strategies at the expense of peers.
• Relational Infidelity: Longitudinal evaluations in romantic relationships reveal that high entitlement predicts lower relational commitment, higher self-reported rates of infidelity, and an expectation that romantic partners must accommodate personal demands unconditionally.
• Academic Settings: High PES scores predict student antagonism toward professors, demands for grade inflation, and academic entitlement behaviors.
• Consumer Settings: Research in service marketing demonstrates that entitled consumers exhibit hypercritical evaluations, aggressive confrontations with frontline staff, elevated demands for financial compensation after minor service hiccups, and high tendencies toward public brand disparagement.

8. Reliability

The Psychological Entitlement Scale exhibits exceptional empirical reliability across diverse sampling frameworks, demographic cohorts, and national contexts.

8.1 Internal Consistency

Across the primary validation samples reported by Campbell et al. (2004), the internal consistency of the 9-item PES was repeatedly demonstrated to be high:

• Study 1 (Scale Construction & EFA, N = 340 undergraduates): Cronbach’s α = .85.
• Study 2 (Confirmatory Analysis, N = 189 undergraduates): Cronbach’s α = .86.
• Study 3 (Construct Validity, N = 127 participants): Cronbach’s α = .88.
• Study 4 (Commons Dilemma, N = 153 participants): Cronbach’s α = .85.

Subsequent international replications and organizational assessments have confirmed that Cronbach’s alpha routinely resides within the .84 to .89 interval. Corrected item-total correlations across the nine items systematically surpass .45, with key items such as “I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than others” and “I feel entitled to more of everything” regularly posting item-total correlations exceeding .65.

8.2 Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

The temporal stability of the PES confirms that psychological entitlement functions as an enduring personality trait rather than a fleeting affective state. In test-retest reliability assessments conducted over a two-week span, Campbell et al. (2004) reported an intraclass correlation coefficient of r = .80 (p < .001). Longitudinal examinations tracking cohorts across a two-month duration revealed stable coefficients around r = .72. Even across multi-year developmental panels, the dispositional rank-order consistency of psychological entitlement remains remarkably resilient.

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses affirm that the Psychological Entitlement Scale is structurally unidimensional.

9.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During the initial scale construction phase, Campbell et al. (2004) subjected an initial pool of candidate items to Exploratory Factor Analysis utilizing principal-axis factoring and maximum likelihood extraction with varimax and oblimin rotations. Analysis of scree plots, parallel analysis, and Kaiser’s criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) unequivocally indicated a single dominant factor. The first unrotated factor accounted for approximately 45% to 52% of the total variance across exploratory samples, while subsequent factors yielded eigenvalues well below unity (typically < 0.70) with no substantive semantic coherence.

Item-factor loadings on this single latent entitlement dimension were uniformly high, with 8 of the 9 items exhibiting standardized factor loadings ranging from .55 to .78. The sole reverse-scored item (Item 5: “I do not necessarily deserve special treatment”) routinely exhibits the lowest yet fully acceptable factor loading (ranging from -.40 to -.52), a common phenomenon in psychometric scales featuring singular reverse-keyed items.

9.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Model Fit

Confirmatory Factor Analysis has consistently sustained the unifactorial specification of the PES across numerous cross-validation samples. Structural equation modeling tests comparing the single-factor model against alternative two-factor models (e.g., separating active deservingness from demands for special treatment) consistently establish that the unidimensional model is parsimonious and superior.

Standard goodness-of-fit metrics reported in contemporary psychometric studies for the 9-item unifactorial model include:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .95 to .98 (exceeding the standard .95 threshold for optimal fit).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .94 to .97.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .042 to .061 (with 90% confidence intervals consistently below .08).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .028 to .045.
• Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio (χ²/df): Typically between 1.5 and 2.4, demonstrating outstanding structural fidelity.

Measurement invariance testing across gender groups has substantiated full metric and scalar invariance, demonstrating that the PES measures the entitlement construct identically in men and women, although men consistently manifest slightly higher latent mean scores on the trait.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES)
• Instrument Type: Self-report psychological assessment scale / personality inventory
• Authors: W. Keith Campbell, Amy M. Bonacci, Jeremy Shelton, Julie Juola Exline, and Brad J. Bushman
• Original Publication Year: 2004
• Construct Assessed: Unidimensional psychological entitlement (stable belief in self-deservingness and superior outcome entitlement)
• Number of Items: 9 items
• Scale Structure: Strictly unidimensional (no subscales)
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = strong disagreement to 7 = strong agreement)
• Response Anchors:
  • 1 = Strong disagreement
  • 2 = Disagreement
  • 3 = Mild disagreement
  • 4 = Neither agreement nor disagreement
  • 5 = Mild agreement
  • 6 = Agreement
  • 7 = Strong agreement
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Item 5 is reverse-scored: Recode 1→7, 2→6, 3→5, 4→4, 5→3, 6→2, 7→1.
  • Calculate the mean or sum across all 9 items. The mean score (ranging from 1.0 to 7.0) is typically preferred to maintain interpretability relative to the response scale.
  • Higher numerical scores reflect greater levels of generalized psychological entitlement.
• Administration Time: Approximately 2 to 3 minutes
• Target Populations: Adults and adolescents (standardized on college students, community adults, and organizational employees)

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Psychological Entitlement Scale was first published in 2004 in the Journal of Personality. In accordance with standard academic publishing conventions, the instrument was placed into the public scientific domain for research, educational, and non-commercial scholarship by its authors (Campbell et al., 2004). Researchers, educators, and clinicians are permitted to utilize, reproduce, and administer the PES without paying royalty fees or seeking formal prior written authorization, provided that proper scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors through citation of the foundational validation article.

Commercial applications—including pre-employment psychological screening batteries, commercial executive coaching assessments, or fee-based consulting software integrations—may require licensing permissions from the copyright holder (the publishers of the Journal of Personality, Wiley-Blackwell, or the scale authors). Inquiries regarding commercial usage or translation adaptations should be directed to Dr. W. Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia.

12. References

Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 267–299). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60108-2

Campbell, W. K., Bonacci, A. M., Shelton, J., Exline, J. J., & Bushman, B. J. (2004). Psychological entitlement: Interpersonal consequences and validation of a self-report measure. Journal of Personality, 72(1), 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00255.x

Exline, J. J., Baumeister, R. F., Bushman, B. J., Campbell, W. K., & Finkel, E. J. (2004). Too proud to let go: Narcissistic entitlement as a barrier to forgiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 894–912. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.894

Harvey, P., & Martinko, M. J. (2009). An empirical examination of the role of attributions in psychological entitlement and its outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30(4), 459–476. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.549

Miller, J. D., Campbell, W. K., Young, D. L., Lakey, C. E., Reidy, D. E., Zeichner, A., & Goodie, A. S. (2009). Examining the relations among narcissism, self-perception, and self-directed and other-directed aggressive behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(8), 844–849. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.01.014

Raskin, R., & Terry, H. (1988). A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(5), 890–902. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.890

13. Items of the Scale