Status Consumption Scale

1. Abstract

The Status Consumption Scale (SCS-Status), developed by Jacqueline K. Eastman, Ronald E. Goldsmith, and Leisa Reinecke Flynn (1999), is a psychometric instrument designed to evaluate the motivational tendency of consumers to purchase goods and services for the prestige and social status they confer. Grounded in sociological and economic traditions of positional goods, status signaling, and social stratification, status consumption reflects an internal psychological drive to enhance one’s relative standing in the social hierarchy through consumer behavior. Distinct from conspicuous consumption—which is inherently defined by overt public display and external visibility—status consumption captures the broader motivational construct that encompasses both private and public evaluations of prestige. The SCS consists of five self-report items evaluated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). Psychometric evaluations across diverse consumer samples consistently demonstrate robust internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging from α = .81 to .88) and strong unidimensional construct validity verified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The scale exhibits sound convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity, demonstrating systematic correlations with related constructs such as materialism, brand consciousness, opinion seeking, fashion innovativeness, and price-quality schema. Because of its brevity, high psychometric efficiency, and theoretical fidelity, the SCS is widely utilized in luxury brand research, consumer psychology, cross-cultural marketing, and behavioral economics to segment markets and model prestige-oriented consumer decision-making.

2. Keywords

Status Consumption Scale, consumer behavior, prestige goods, luxury consumption, social status, conspicuous consumption, psychometrics, scale validation, consumer psychology, social stratification

3. Authors

The Status Consumption Scale was developed and psychometrically validated by:

• Jacqueline K. Eastman, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, Georgia Southern University (Statesboro, Georgia, USA), and formerly affiliated with Valdosta State University. Dr. Eastman has published extensively on status consumption, retail marketing, and consumer education.
• Ronald E. Goldsmith, Ph.D. — Richard M. Baker Professor of Marketing (Emeritus), Department of Marketing, College of Business, Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida, USA). Dr. Goldsmith is a recognized authority in consumer research, psychometric measurement, consumer innovativeness, and brand perception.
• Leisa Reinecke Flynn, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing and Consumer Sciences, Florida State University / The University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA). Dr. Flynn specializes in psychometrics, market research methodology, opinion leadership, and consumer psychology.

4. Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Status Consumption Scale is to quantify an individual’s psychological motivation to purchase and consume goods and services that signal, elevate, or maintain their social status within interpersonal and societal hierarchies. Developed in response to conceptual ambiguities in the marketing and sociological literature, the scale addresses the persistent conflation between Veblenian conspicuous consumption and the broader, internal motivational drive toward status acquisition.

Status consumption is defined conceptually by Eastman, Goldsmith, and Flynn (1999) as the motivational process by which individuals strive to improve their social standing through the conspicuous or non-conspicuous consumption of consumer products that confer or symbolize status both for the individual and for significant others. Prior to the creation of the SCS, researchers predominantly relied on ad-hoc, multi-item indices that conflated status motivation with wealth displays, snobbery, public visibility, or broad materialism. The primary objective of Eastman and colleagues was to formulate an instrument that isolates the motivational core of status acquisition through consumption, operating independently of product category, overt display settings, or absolute socio-economic standing.

In applied and academic research contexts, the SCS serves multiple purposes:

• Theoretical Modeling: It facilitates structural equation modeling and path analysis examining antecedents (e.g., self-esteem, cultural orientations, socio-economic mobility, materialism) and consequences (e.g., willingness to pay price premiums, brand loyalty, counterfeit consumption, sustainable luxury trade-offs) of status-driven purchasing.
• Market Segmentation: In market research and brand management, the SCS is employed to identify and profile status-seeking market segments across luxury goods, automotive markets, consumer technology, haute couture, and hospitality services.
• Cross-Cultural and Demographic Inquiries: Scholars utilize the scale to investigate generational differences (such as Gen Z vs. Millennials) and cross-cultural disparities in prestige consumption, contrasting collectivistic and individualistic socio-cultural orientations toward social hierarchy and face-saving.
• Ethical and Public Policy Research: The instrument aids consumer welfare advocates and behavioral economists in investigating compensatory consumption, consumer indebtedness, and the psychological vulnerability to predatory financial schemes that exploit status anxiety.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the Status Consumption Scale is Status Consumption. In consumer psychology, social status refers to an individual’s relative position or prestige within a recognized social structure, characterized by the degree of respect, deference, and honor accorded by societal peers. Consuming products to obtain status involves leveraging the socially constructed symbolic meanings attached to commercial goods to influence either public perception or self-perception.

Status consumption is formally conceptualized as a unidimensional motivational construct. Although some socio-economic constructs delineate between external signaling and internal self-enhancement, psychometric analyses by Eastman et al. (1999) demonstrate that the direct motivational disposition to seek status through products functions as a parsimonious, unified cognitive-affective trait. This construct encompasses several core psychological facets:

• Status Valuing: The degree to which an individual places intrinsic psychological value on the prestige attributed to a product. Rather than focusing purely on functional, utilitarian, or experiential product characteristics, status-oriented consumers assign subjective utility to the product’s social repute.
• Prestige-Driven Purchasing Intent: The explicit behavioral inclination to select and purchase goods primarily because of the symbolic status they possess. This represents an active behavioral translation of the underlying desire for social elevation.
• Price-Status Invariance / Willingness to Pay Premiums: The cognitive rationalization that the monetary cost of a product is secondary to its status-enhancing capacity. Status consumers demonstrate a readiness to pay higher prices for an item precisely because elevated pricing functions as an exclusionary barrier that preserves symbolic prestige.
• Appreciation of Exclusivity and Snob Appeal: The psychological attraction to scarce, exclusive, or socially stratified goods that signal distinction from mainstream consumers, often aligning with the classic Leibensteinian concepts of “snob” and “Veblen” effects.

Importantly, the construct must be distinguished from related but theoretically distinct constructs:

• Conspicuous Consumption: Conspicuous consumption, as defined by Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), strictly requires the overt, visible public display of wealth and luxury to communicate financial strength. Conversely, status consumption focuses on the motivational desire for social status itself, which can occur even in discreet, non-conspicuous, or private consumption contexts (e.g., purchasing an ultra-premium mattress, bespoke tailoring with subtle interior branding, or high-end kitchen appliances not readily seen by guests).
• Materialism: Materialism (e.g., Belk, 1985; Richins & Dawson, 1992) encompasses a broader lifestyle orientation and belief system regarding the centrality of possessions in defining life success and happiness. Status consumption is narrower and specifically oriented toward positional advantage and hierarchical distinction.
• Brand Consciousness: Brand consciousness reflects an awareness of and orientation toward brand names and brand imagery. While a status consumer is often brand-conscious, a consumer may be brand-conscious solely for risk reduction, quality assurance, or functional reliability without being motivated by status elevation.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Status Consumption Scale is underpinned by integrated theoretical contributions spanning sociology, microeconomics, and social psychology.

Socio-Economic Foundations: Positional Goods and Prestige Theory

The historical architecture of status consumption originates in the seminal economic sociology of Thorstein Veblen (1899). Veblen proposed that in stratified societies, social esteem is inherently linked to financial prowess. Because wealth cannot always be directly audited, individuals engage in conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption to make their financial power tangible to others. Harvey Leibenstein (1950) advanced this microeconomic foundation by formalizing the non-functional demand for goods: the Veblen effect (where consumer utility increases as the price increases due to prestige signaling) and the snob effect (where demand decreases as the product becomes widely adopted by the general population). Eastman et al. (1999) synthesized these frameworks, noting that while Veblen emphasized the public theatricality of consumption, the psychological core is the motivational pursuit of status, which exists independently of whether the consumption is visually flaunted.

Sociological Stratification and Distinction

The scale integrates Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) sociological theory of Distinction, which asserts that taste and consumption practices serve as weapons of social classification. Bourdieu posited that social agents deploy economic, social, and cultural capital to establish hierarchical boundaries. Goods are imbued with symbolic capital; purchasing high-status items allows consumers to stake claims to higher cultural or social strata. Fred Hirsch’s (1976) concept of positional goods—goods whose desirability arises strictly from their absolute scarcity and their ability to differentiate their possessor from non-possessors—further reinforces the theoretical rationale of the SCS.

Social Psychological Foundations: Social Comparison and Identity Signaling

From a psychological perspective, status consumption is explained by Leon Festinger’s (1954) Social Comparison Theory. Festinger asserted that human beings possess an innate drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others. In modern, highly market-oriented societies, social standing is frequently assessed through material benchmarks. Consumers engage in downward social comparisons to validate their superiority or upward social comparisons to emulate aspirational reference groups. Additionally, Erving Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical framework and contemporary theories of self-presentation and identity signaling (e.g., Berger & Heath, 2007) illustrate that possessions operate as external symbolic props that communicate desired social identities to both external audiences and the inner self.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Status Consumption Scale was established through a series of rigorous empirical investigations conducted by Eastman, Goldsmith, and Flynn (1999) across diverse consumer samples, including undergraduate students, working adults, and national consumer panels, and has been corroborated by extensive subsequent literature.

Construct and Content Validity

The initial scale development involved rigorous content validation. Eastman et al. generated an initial item pool of 36 items derived from an extensive literature review of status, prestige, and consumer behavior. A panel of expert marketing faculty evaluated these items for content relevance, conceptual clarity, and non-redundancy, pruning the pool to 13 candidate items. Subsequent iterative psychometric administrations and item-to-total correlation analyses resulted in the final, highly cohesive 5-item scale that captures the status consumption construct without domain underrepresentation or construct contamination.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established by demonstrating significant, theoretically consistent correlations between the SCS and allied consumer constructs:

• Materialism: The SCS correlates positively and significantly with Richins and Dawson’s (1992) Material Values Scale (MVS), particularly with the “Success” subscale (measuring the use of possessions as an indicator of success; r typically between .45 and .58, p < .001).
• Brand Consciousness: Moderate to high positive correlations have been reported between status consumption and brand consciousness measures (r = .40 to .55), confirming that status seekers rely systematically on recognized brands as vehicles of status.
• Price-Quality Schema: The scale demonstrates positive associations with consumers’ beliefs that price reflects product quality and prestige (r = .35 to .48), aligning with the economic theory of the Veblen effect.
• Fashion Innovativeness and Opinion Seeking: Research indicates positive correlations between status consumption and fashion opinion seeking and innovativeness, reflecting the reality that fashion items frequently serve as the primary currency for public status signaling.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was verified by demonstrating that the SCS does not redundantly measure generalized social desirability or distinct personality constructs:

• The SCS exhibits non-significant or trivial correlations with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (r generally < |.10|, non-significant), demonstrating that respondents’ answers are not mere artifacts of impression management.
• The scale demonstrates statistical divergence from broad consumer innovativeness scales (such as the Domain-Specific Innovativeness scale; Goldsmith & Hofacker, 1991), showing that innovativeness per se is distinct from innovativeness motivated exclusively by social status.
• Confirmatory factor analysis models pairing the SCS with Richins and Dawson’s MVS reveal that average variance extracted (AVE) estimates exceed shared variance (squared correlation φ²), supporting discriminant validity according to Fornell-Larcker criteria.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

Predictive validity has been confirmed through behavioral and choice experiments:

• Scores on the SCS significantly predict actual purchase intentions and willingness to pay premium prices for luxury branded goods (e.g., luxury watches, designer apparel, premium automobiles) versus utilitarian, unbranded equivalents.
• Studies evaluating responses to luxury brand counterfeit goods show that high status consumption motivation predicts the purchase of counterfeit items among consumers who are economically constrained from buying authentic prestige products.

8. Reliability

The Status Consumption Scale exhibits exemplary reliability across diverse empirical contexts, demonstrating that its brevity does not compromise its measurement precision.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the foundational scale development study by Eastman, Goldsmith, and Flynn (1999), internal consistency was rigorously assessed across multiple independent samples:

• In the primary calibration sample of adult consumers (N = 206), Cronbach’s alpha was computed at α = .87.
• In a replication sample of university students (N = 217), the scale achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .81.
• In a subsequent cross-validation sample of mature working professionals, the internal consistency was observed at α = .88.
• Corrected item-to-total correlations for all five items routinely exceed .60, well above the conventional psychometric threshold of .30 to .40, demonstrating that all five items contribute substantially to the core measurement construct.

Subsequent international studies adapting the SCS have reported comparable internal consistency indices, typically ranging from α = .80 to .91 across diverse consumer groups in North America, Europe, East Asia, and Latin America.

Test-Retest Reliability and Stability

Although the SCS is predominantly administered in cross-sectional research, test-retest reliability assessments across intervals of two to four weeks have yielded test-retest correlation coefficients exceeding r = .80 (p < .001). This stability confirms that while situational factors (e.g., identity threats or acute social comparison cues) can temporarily prime status consciousness, the SCS reliably captures an enduring, stable consumer motivational disposition.

9. Factor Analysis

Both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) have firmly corroborated the unidimensional structure of the Status Consumption Scale.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During the psychometric development phases executed by Eastman et al. (1999), principal components analysis and common factor analysis (principal axis factoring) with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations were conducted on the candidate items:

• Eigenvalues and Scree Test: Analysis consistently revealed an unequivocal single-factor solution. The first factor yielded an eigenvalue substantially exceeding 3.0 (typically accounting for 55% to 65% of the total variance across samples), with the second factor yielding an eigenvalue well below 1.0 (ranging between 0.45 and 0.65). The Cattell scree plot confirmed a sharp break after the first factor.
• Factor Loadings: In the single-factor EFA solution, all five items exhibited high, unifactorial standardized factor loadings, all exceeding .65, with several items loading above .80. No evidence of multi-dimensionality or cross-loading was identified.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent confirmatory factor analyses using structural equation modeling software (e.g., LISREL, AMOS, Mplus) confirmed the adequacy of the unidimensional measurement model across general consumer populations:

• Standardized Factor Loadings (λ): In CFA models, standardized path loadings for the five indicator variables typically range from λ = .68 to .88, with all parameters achieving statistical significance at p < .001.
• Model Fit Indices: The unidimensional five-item model demonstrates excellent goodness-of-fit indices:
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) ≥ .97 (frequently > .99)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI / NNFI) ≥ .96
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ .055 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .080)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ .030
• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom ratio (χ²/df) ≤ 2.5
• Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and Composite Reliability (CR): The scale regularly exhibits AVE values exceeding .55 (typically .60 to .68), surpassing the benchmark of .50, while Composite Reliability coefficients exceed .85, confirming strong convergent validity and construct reliability at the latent level.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Status Consumption Scale (SCS) is a self-administered, psychometric survey instrument designed for efficient deployment in individual, group, or online testing environments.

• Test Type: Self-report psychological / consumer behavior rating scale
• Construct Assessed: Consumer motivation to acquire social status and prestige through product consumption
• Format: Pen-and-paper or computer-assisted self-interview (CASI / web survey)
• Item Count: 5 items
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree)
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neither Agree nor Disagree (Neutral)
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Rules:
  • All 5 items are positively worded and scored directly (no reverse-scored items).
  • The overall status consumption score is calculated by summing or averaging the responses across all 5 items.
  • Summed score range: 5 to 35.
  • Mean score range: 1.00 to 7.00.
  • Higher scores indicate higher motivation for status consumption.
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Status Consumption Scale was developed and published in 1999 by Jacqueline K. Eastman, Ronald E. Goldsmith, and Leisa Reinecke Flynn in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. In accordance with standard academic publishing conventions, the scale items were published directly within the public domain of academic literature for scholarly, educational, and non-commercial research use.

Scholars and university researchers may administer the scale without paying licensing fees, provided appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original publication (Eastman, Goldsmith, & Flynn, 1999). Commercial entities, proprietary marketing research firms, or consulting organizations seeking to integrate the scale into proprietary commercial diagnostics or monetization platforms should verify copyright guidelines with the publisher (Taylor & Francis / M.E. Sharpe) or obtain explicit written authorization from the primary authors.

12. References

• Belk, R. W. (1985). Materialism: Trait aspects of living in the material world. Journal of Consumer Research, 12(3), 265–280. https://doi.org/10.1086/208515
• Berger, J., & Heath, C. (2007). Where consumers diverge from others: Identity signaling and product domains. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(2), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1086/519142
• Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University Press.
• Eastman, J. K., Goldsmith, R. E., & Flynn, L. R. (1999). Status consumption in consumer behavior: Scale development and validation. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 7(3), 41–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/10696679.1999.11501839
• 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. (1999). A short, reliable measure of subjective knowledge. Journal of Business Research, 46(1), 57–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0148-2963(98)00057-5
• Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.
• Goldsmith, R. E., & Hofacker, C. F. (1991). Measuring consumer innovativeness. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 19(3), 209–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02726497
• Hirsch, F. (1976). Social limits to growth. Harvard University Press.
• Leibenstein, H. (1950). Bandwagon, snob, and Veblen effects in the theory of consumers’ demand. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 64(2), 183–207. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882692
• Richins, M. L., & Dawson, S. (1992). A consumer values orientation for materialism and its measurement: Scale development and validation. Journal of Consumer Research, 19(3), 303–316. https://doi.org/10.1086/209304
• Veblen, T. (1899). The theory of the leisure class: An economic study of institutions. Macmillan.

13. Items of the Scale