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Consumers’ Need for Prestige: Scale Development

Stefan Hampel, Larissa Hammon and Hajo Hippner

Abstract

Introduction

The need for prestige is deeply anchored in everyday social life. Given the centrality

of consumer products in every moment of the day, they present a valuable tool in the social

communication system. As individuals may fulfill their need for prestige in a variety of ways,

they are likely to vary in the tendency to gain prestige through consumer goods and behavior.

This study is an initial effort to develop and validate a scale that measures individual

differences in the need for prestige. It draws on past research on symbolic consumer behavior

(e.g. Grubb and Grathwohl 1967; Solomon 1983; Richins 1994) and status consumption (e.g.

Eastman, Goldsmith, and Flynn 1999; Clark, Zboja, and Goldsmith 2007) and is in line with

consumer research on the important influence of intrapersonal and interpersonal needs (Burns

1993), e.g. need for touch (NFT) (Peck and Childers 2003), and need for uniqueness (NFU)

(e.g. Tian, Bearden, and Hunter 2001; Lynn and Harris 1997). Even though the prestige

appeal is widely used in marketing, to date no explicitly defined research approach has been

developed.

Drawing on the misleading, interchangeably use of the terms “prestige”, “status”, and

“luxury” in literature, it has to be emphasized that prestige refers to the degree of esteem

accorded to individuals, groups, or entities (Henrich and Gil-White 2001). This involves the

product of the internalization of objective reality, i.e. a morally positive, outstanding human

achievement, and symbolic reality, i.e. the interpretation of socially shared symbols, in social

interactions (Czellar 2002; Dittmar 1992). In contrast, “status” relates to a position in social

hierarchy and “luxury” is rather associated with the self-indulging refined lifestyle of the

affluent which includes some kind of negative connotation (Dubois and Czellar 2002;

Colarelli and Dettmann 2003; Vigneron and Johnson 1999).

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*Stefan Hampel, Larissa Hammon and Hajo Hippner, University of Bayreuth, Germany

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Conceptual Definition

We define Consumers„ Need for Prestige (CNFP) as the tendency to engage in

conspicuous consumer behavior that confers or symbolizes prestige both to the individual and

to the surrounding reference group, in order to gain the extrinsic, social reward prestige. It is

assumed that consumers are likely to vary in the tendency to gain prestige through consumer

goods, referring to different kind of product categories, brands, services, versions, or styles.

As goods are used as symbolic communication devices, it is not the functional utility people

desire, but rather the symbolic benefits these goods provide, i.e. the esteem or admiration of

others. It is supposed that the CNFP explains stable patterns of individual behavior. The

CNFP construct subsumes the following three factors:

The Impression-Oriented Factor. The concern for desired prestigious public

appearances leads people to expressive self-presentation. By regulating and controlling

information about oneself, individuals are able to create/project a prestigious self-identity

towards others. They want to be unique, but unique within the societal norms. This implies

them being acutely aware of the level of prestige associated with a given product or brand

within their social nexus. As many prestigious goods are also consumed in private, prestige-

seeking behavior is assumed to be an enduring, cross-situationally consistent personality trait.

This is contrary to the self-monitoring theory which highlights the variability of self-

presentational tactics depending on situational cues (Gangestad and Synder 2000).

The Social Approval Factor. An individual will only engage in expressive self-

presentational tactics, if his/her conduct will lead to the desired end-state prestige. This

implies the belief of others using person schemata which are organized around possessions

and possession-related traits, e.g. style, expertise (Hunt, Kernan, and Mitchell 1996; Richins

and Dawson 1992). Therefore, the prestige-driven behavior has to be significant (i.e. visible,

variable and personalizable) and to involve a socially shared meaning of prestige (Holman

1981; Dittmar 1992). Individuals with a common history of enculturation should be able to

predict the behavior of others in that culture (Solomon 1983).

The Impressible Factor. Prestige-seekers tend to judge a person‟s worth, i.e. form

impressions and make judgments, on the basis of external, material appearances to the extent

that inner, nonmaterial qualities are likely to be trivialized (Hunt, Kernan, and Mitchell 1996).

Scale Development, Assessment of the Scale Reliability and Validity

Based on the results of a continued word association method to the stimulus “prestige”

and in line with the conceptual definition of the CNFP, a pool of 29 items was generated.

After assessing content validity, the remained 21-item scale was queried on a seven-point

Likert-scale via an online survey (N = 493).

The procedure of assessing scale reliability and validity is conducted in accordance

with previous applications for scale development (cp. NFU and NFT). Varimax-rotated

exploratory factor analysis resulted in 12 items loading on the Impression-Oriented Factor,

six items on the Social Approval Factor, and three items on the Impressible Factor. The scale

was evaluated through a number of reliability and validity criteria of first and second

generation (e.g. Cronbachs α, ITTC, explained variance, factor reliability, indicator reliability,

RMSEA, NFI, GFI). Evidence of convergent validity and discriminant validity between the

three factors as well as with conceptually distinct scales (NFU scale (Tian, Bearden, and

Hunter 2001), Materialism Scale (Richins and Dawson 1992)) are provided. The assessment

of nomological validity included the framework of psychological needs and the model of the

formation of prestige judgments and revealed satisfactory results (Burns 1993; Czellar 2002).

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Conclusion

The primary goal of this research was to develop and validate a measurement scale of

individual differences in the aspiration of prestige through consumption. The results indicate

that CNFP is composed of three dimensions: the Impression-Oriented Factor, the Social

Approval Factor, and the Impressible Factor. Consumers with a high need for prestige

appeared to have a strong concern for their appearance and image in line with a strong

emphasis on person schemata based on commercial goods. The emerged 21-item CNFP-scale

was found to be reliable and to meet the criterion of content, convergent, discriminant, and

nomological validity. This paper constitutes an exploratory investigation of the latent

construct Consumers‟ Need for Prestige. The CNFP-scale should be used as an intervening

variable in different prestige-related consumer research contexts. Replications and further

refinements would additionally support our initial findings.

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