Social Status of the Attendees

1. Abstract

The Social Status of the Attendees Scale is a psychometric instrument developed by Perrine Desmichel and Bruno Kocher (2020) to measure observational inferences regarding the socioeconomic standing, prestige, and financial affluence of individuals present in a shared consumer environment or event. Grounded in consumer psychology, signaling theory, and the social dimensions of servicescapes, the instrument evaluates how observers interpret social cues from other patrons to construct inferences about the surrounding atmosphere and retail brand exclusivity. The scale consists of 3 concisely worded, highly focused items rated on a 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree). Psychometric evaluation across empirical studies in luxury retailing demonstrates strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically exceeding .85 to .90), robust unidimensional structural validity verified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and high convergent and discriminant validity against related constructs such as brand prestige, perceived exclusivity, and store atmosphere elegance. By capturing the social-evaluative dimension of consumer environments, the scale provides researchers and marketers with a reliable, parsimonious metric to diagnose how patron composition influences brand equity, hedonic shopping evaluations, and perceived social distance.

2. Keywords

Social status perception, attendee prestige, servicescape, social signaling theory, luxury retailing, consumer behavior, brand perception, perceived wealth, status inference, retail atmospherics, psychometrics, social comparison.

3. Authors

The scale was developed and validated by:

• Perrine Desmichel — Assistant Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, IESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS 9221), Paris and Lille, France. Her research focuses on luxury brand management, consumer psychology, sensory marketing, and social perceptions in retail environments.
• Bruno Kocher — Associate Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing and Communication, NEOMA Business School, Reims/Paris, France. His expertise spans brand strategy, luxury consumption, status signaling, and consumer decision-making processes.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Social Status of the Attendees Scale is to quantify how an observer or consumer assesses the collective social standing, prestige, and economic capital of people present within a specific service environment, retail establishment, or corporate/social event. In experiential settings—particularly in the realms of high-end hospitality, luxury commerce, cultural venues, and elite networking gatherings—the human element of the environment serves as a critical contextual cue that directly shapes brand perceptions, consumer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions.

Historically, environmental psychology and servicescape frameworks (Bitner, 1992) emphasized inanimate physical dimensions such as lighting, architecture, scent, and layout. However, contemporary consumer research highlights that the “social servicescape”—the demographic, behavioral, and perceived social characteristics of other customers—often exerts an equal or superior influence on how an individual evaluates a brand or venue. Desmichel and Kocher (2020) designed this scale to isolate status inferences derived specifically from co-consumers and event attendees, moving beyond generalized impressions of store elegance or staff professionalism.

In academic research, the instrument serves as an essential mediator or dependent variable in studies exploring retail atmospherics, luxury retail formats (e.g., single-brand flagship stores versus multi-brand department stores), experiential marketing, and peer effects. In applied commercial settings, luxury managers, event planners, and retail strategists employ the measure to evaluate whether audience composition aligns with intended brand positioning. Because status perceptions are vulnerable to consumer contagion, understanding how attendees are perceived provides diagnostic intelligence on whether an environment fosters social aspiration or risks brand dilution.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the scale is Perceived Social Status of Attendees, defined as an observer’s subjective assessment of the collective socioeconomic prestige, social stratification rank, and affluence embodied by individuals in an immediate physical or virtual environment. Rather than assessing objective socioeconomic variables (e.g., educational attainment, verified income, or occupational prestige through standard indices), the scale captures the cognitive and perceptual inferences formed through observational heuristics.

This construct operates as a unidimensional yet multi-faceted perception comprising three primary psychological facets:

• Perceived Social Status: The macro-level perception that attendees occupy an elevated, respected rank within the social hierarchy. It taps into interpersonal respect, deference, and generalized social prominence.
• Social Class Prestige: The attribution of refined social class belonging, encompassing symbolic capital, cultural refinement, and membership in recognized social elites.
• Perceived Economic Wealth: The inference of significant material and financial capital, based on observable cues such as attire, luxury accessories, grooming, and behavioral deportment.

Psychologically, human beings are highly attuned to social rank indicators. When entering an environment, individuals rapidly engage in “thin-slicing” or spontaneous social categorization, processing micro-cues to infer whether the aggregate group belongs to a desirable in-group, an aspirational reference group, or an incongruent social strata. Within luxury retail environments, perceived attendee status acts as a social mirror: encountering high-status attendees elevates perceived brand exclusivity and validates the consumer’s own hedonic and self-enhancement goals.

6. Theoretical Framework

The scale is grounded in three complementary theoretical frameworks across sociology, social psychology, and consumer research:

Signaling Theory and Conspicuous Consumption

Originating from evolutionary biology and formulated in economics by Thorstein Veblen (1899) and later Michael Spence (1973), signaling theory posits that individuals display observable markers (signals) to convey unobservable qualities such as wealth, fitness, or status. In a retail or event environment, attendees deploy phenotypic cues (e.g., luxury clothing, demeanor, grooming) that observers synthesize into a collective signal. Desmichel and Kocher (2020) build on this foundation by illustrating that when consumers observe other patrons emitting high-status signals, those signals spill over onto the venue itself, functioning as secondary brand associations.

Social Comparison Theory

Formulated by Leon Festinger (1954), Social Comparison Theory explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others. In public consumption venues, upward social comparison occurs when consumers observe attendees perceived as having higher status. Depending on the consumer’s psychological orientation—such as whether they hold self-enhancement or hedonic shopping goals—high-status attendees can stimulate aspirational feelings or, conversely, elicit feelings of social exclusion or intimidation. The scale provides a standardized mechanism to quantify the perceived baseline against which consumers calibrate their social comparisons.

The Social Servicescape Framework

Extending Bitner’s (1992) foundational model of environmental psychology, researchers such as Tombs and McColl-Kennedy (2003) conceptualized the social servicescape, highlighting that customer-to-customer interactions and mere presence significantly affect emotional states (pleasure, arousal, dominance) and approach-avoidance behaviors. Within this framework, perceived attendee status constitutes a central social cue that directly dictates the perceived quality, luxury level, and exclusivity of the service setting.

7. Validity

Empirical validation of the Social Status of the Attendees Scale demonstrates robust psychometric properties across experimental and field settings:

Construct and Content Validity

Content validity was established through thorough domain sampling reflecting the theoretical definitions of social stratification, prestige, and economic standing. The three items comprehensively cover the social (status), cultural/class (prestige), and economic (wealth) dimensions identified by sociological theorists such as Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu. Expert evaluations within marketing and psychometrics confirmed that the items exhibit strong semantic clarity and directly tap the target latent construct without conceptual contamination.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established by demonstrating substantial, statistically significant correlations with conceptually aligned constructs. In the empirical studies conducted by Desmichel and Kocher (2020), perceived attendee status correlated positively with:

• Brand Exclusivity: Moderate-to-high positive correlations (typically r = .52 to .68, p < .001).
• Store Elegance and Luxury Perception: Significant positive associations (r = .48 to .64, p < .001).
• Willingness to Pay / Price Expectations: Positive correlations indicating that higher perceived attendee status leads consumers to anticipate and accept premium pricing structures.

The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values in structural evaluations consistently exceed the recommended .50 threshold, frequently surpassing .70, verifying that the scale accounts for the majority of variance in its indicators.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established using the Fornell-Larcker criterion and the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio of correlations. The square root of the AVE for the attendee status construct consistently exceeded its inter-construct correlations with store layout satisfaction, personal brand attachment, and hedonic goal orientation. HTMT ratios with surrounding environmental constructs consistently remained below the conservative .85 threshold, demonstrating that the scale measures a distinct social-evaluative construct rather than general atmospheric satisfaction.

8. Reliability

The scale demonstrates exceptional internal consistency across diverse empirical research contexts:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): In the primary validation studies by Desmichel and Kocher (2020), the scale yielded Cronbach’s α coefficients consistently above .85, typically ranging between .88 and .93, reflecting high homogeneity among the three indicators.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation modeling evaluations report CR values exceeding .89, well above the recommended .70 benchmark.
• Inter-Item Correlations: Bivariate correlations among the three items range between .70 and .84, demonstrating that while the items reflect distinct facets (status, social class, wealth), they tap into a shared underlying psychological assessment.
• Corrected Item-Total Correlations: All values exceed .75, indicating that removal of any single item does not enhance scale reliability and confirming the cohesive performance of the 3-item battery.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the Social Status of the Attendees Scale has been confirmed via both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood extractions with both orthogonal and oblique rotations consistently yield a single-factor solution. A single eigenvalue substantially greater than 1.0 (typically > 2.4) emerges, explaining upwards of 75% to 85% of the total variance across datasets. Factor loadings for each of the three items are exceptionally strong and uniform:

• Item 1 (High social status): Factor loadings typically range from .86 to .92.
• Item 2 (Prestigious social class): Factor loadings typically range from .88 to .94.
• Item 3 (High level of wealth): Factor loadings typically range from .82 to .89.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Because a three-indicator single-factor CFA model is saturated (just-identified with zero degrees of freedom), multi-factor CFA specifications that incorporate the scale alongside related constructs (e.g., store prestige, brand attractiveness, hedonic value) demonstrate excellent global model fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): ≥ .98
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): ≥ .97
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): ≤ .05 (90% CI [.02, .07])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): ≤ .03

Standardized factor loadings in CFA models are all statistically significant at p < .001, confirming that the three items serve as robust indicators of the latent attendee status construct.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Social Status of the Attendees Scale
• Authors: Perrine Desmichel and Bruno Kocher (2020)
• Construct Measured: Perceived social status, prestige, and wealth of individuals attending an event or occupying a retail/service environment
• Number of Items: 3 items
• Factor Structure: Unidimensional (single factor)
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)
• Scoring Protocol: Responses to the 3 items are averaged arithmetically to generate a continuous composite index ranging from 1.00 to 7.00. Higher composite scores reflect higher perceived social status, prestige, and affluence of attendees.
• Reverse-Scored Items: None. All items are keyed in the positive direction.
• Administration Time: Less than 1 minute (approximately 30 to 45 seconds).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 2020
• Original Publication: Journal of Retailing, Volume 96, Issue 2, pages 203–219.
• Copyright & Ownership: Copyright © 2020 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University.
• Permissions and Access: The scale items were published as part of an academic peer-reviewed article. Researchers may use the scale for non-commercial academic research and educational purposes without licensing fees, provided appropriate scholarly citation is attributed to Desmichel and Kocher (2020). Commercial applications, proprietary brand audits, or widespread reproduction in commercial measurement batteries should seek permission through the publisher’s copyright clearance portal (Elsevier / RightsLink).

12. References

Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299205600205

Desmichel, P., & Kocher, B. (2020). Luxury single- versus multi-brand stores: The effect of consumers’ hedonic goals on brand comparisons. Journal of Retailing, 96(2), 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.11.002

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202

Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882010

Tombs, A., & McColl-Kennedy, J. R. (2003). Social-servicescape conceptual model. Marketing Theory, 3(4), 447–475. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593103040001

Veblen, T. (1899). The theory of the leisure class: An economic study of institutions. Macmillan.

13. Items of the Scale