Do Reverse‐Worded Items Confound Measures in Cross‐Cultural Consumer Research? The Case of the Material Values Scale

Most measures of consumer behavior have been developed and employed in the United States. Thus, relatively little is known about the cross‐cultural applicability of these measures. Using Richins and Dawson’s (1992) Material Values Scale (MVS) as an exemplar, this article focuses on the problems rese...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of consumer research 2003-06, Vol.30 (1), p.72-91
Main Authors: Wong, Nancy, Rindfleisch, Aric, Burroughs, James E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Consumer behavior
Consumer research
Correlations
Culture
Discriminant analysis
East Asian culture
Individualism
International
Japanese culture
Korean culture
Likert scale
Marketing
Materialism
Psychometrics
Questions
Researchers
Validity
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Summary:Most measures of consumer behavior have been developed and employed in the United States. Thus, relatively little is known about the cross‐cultural applicability of these measures. Using Richins and Dawson’s (1992) Material Values Scale (MVS) as an exemplar, this article focuses on the problems researchers are likely to encounter when employing domestic mixed‐worded scales (i.e., scales that contain both positive‐ and reverse‐worded items) in cross‐cultural applications. Through an initial study among over 800 adults from the United States, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and Korea, we show that the cross‐cultural measurement equivalence and construct validity of the MVS is challenged by its mixed‐worded Likert format. Through a second study among approximately 400 Americans and East Asians, we find that other mixed‐worded scales produce similar problems and that the cross‐cultural applicability of such scales may be enhanced by replacing items posed as statements with items framed as questions.
ISSN:0093-5301
1537-5277
DOI:10.1086/374697