An &Quot;ImpAn

&Quot;Importance&Quot; Subscale
For the Consumer Involvement
Profile
ortance&Quot; Subscale For the
Consumer Involvement Profile
ABSTRACT - After reviewing the structure (dimensionality) of two scales that have
been proffered as measures of the involvement construct, Zaichkowsky's Personal
Involvement Inventory (PII), and Laurent and Kapferer's Consumer Involvement Profile
(CIP), the authors propose and provide initial support for a new subscale for the CIP;
one designed to measure Importance, a construct not now encompassed by that scale.
The relationship between Importance and the remaining CIP subscales designed to
measure various involvement antecedents (ie., Interest-Pleasure, Sign, Risk Probability
and Risk Importance) is then discussed.

CITATION:

Kenneth C. Schneider and William C. Rodgers (1996) ,"An &Quot;Importance&Quot;

Subscale For the Consumer Involvement Profile", in NA - Advances in Consumer
Research Volume 23, eds. Kim P. Corfman and John G. Lynch Jr., Provo, UT :
Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 249-254.
Advances in Consumer Research Volume 23, 1996 Pages 249-254
AN "IMPORTANCE" SUBSCALE FOR THE CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
PROFILE
Kenneth C. Schneider, St. Cloud State University
William C. Rodgers, St. Cloud State University
ABSTRACT -
After reviewing the structure (dimensionality) of two scales that have been proffered as
measures of the involvement construct, Zaichkowsky's Personal Involvement Inventory
(PII), and Laurent and Kapferer's Consumer Involvement Profile (CIP), the authors
propose and provide initial support for a new subscale for the CIP; one designed to
measure Importance, a construct not now encompassed by that scale. The relationship
between Importance and the remaining CIP subscales designed to measure various
involvement antecedents (ie., Interest-Pleasure, Sign, Risk Probability and Risk
Importance) is then discussed.
INTRODUCTION
While the specific wording still changes from one author to the next, most consumer
researchers would probably not argue with a characterization of product involvement as
a consumer's "heightened motivational state" (Mittal 1989a, p. 697) toward some
product or service category that derives from its relevance or importance to the
consumer. As such, product involvement can be distinguished from involvement with
other objects, including the purchase process (Slama and Tashchian 1985, Mittal 1989),
advertising messages (Andrews and Durvasula 1991), and so on. This so-called
relevance or importance, in turn, results from one or another personal or situational
conditioners, referred to as involvement antecedents.
Consumer researchers have made considerable progress toward developing a scale to
measure the product involvement construct in the past ten years or so. To date, however,
attendant research has proceeded along two parallel, non-intersecting lines of inquiry.
As a consequence, researchers now have available two rather disparate involvement
scales, the Personal Involvement Inventory and the Consumer Involvement Profile.
The next section presents a brief discussion of the structure or dimensionality of these
two scales. After that discussion, an extension which adds an "Importance" subscale to
the Consumer Involvement Profile is proposed and analyzed. It is intended that the new
subscale will allow the Consumer Involvement Profile to more fully measure the
involvement construct.
COMPARING THE STRUCTURE OF TWO INVOLVEMENT SCALES
Personal Involvement Inventory. The twenty item, semantic differential scaled Personal
Involvement Inventory (PII) was originally proposed and analyzed by Zaichkowsky
(1985). This scale, conceived as a unidimensional scale to identify the personal
relevance of a particular product to the consumer, has been further analyzed and refined
by Celuch and Evans (1989), Flynn and Goldsmith (1993), Jain and Srinivasan (1990),
McQuarrie and Munson (1987, 1992), Mittal (1989a), and Zaichkowsky (1986).
Of particular concern here, several authors have addressed the dimensionality of the PII.
After strenuously arguing for a restrictive, unidimensional definition of product
involvement, Mittal (1989a) suggested that the original PII contained at least three
constructs. These include (1) product involvement itself (six scale items that measure
the importance, relevance and significance of the product, plus "of concern," "matters"
and "means a lot" to me), (2) a hedonic antecedent of product involvement (four scale
items that measure interest in, fascination with, appeal of, and excitement generated by
the product), and (3) an amalgam of scale items that probably measure something more
akin to attitude than involvement.
Indeed, McQuarrie and Munson (1992) have recently presented a new version of the
PII, more or less revised along these lines. Those authors suggest organizing the PII into
(1) an Importance dimension of the product involvement construct using five items
from the PII (Mittal's "involvement itself"), (2) an Interest dimension of the product
involvement construct using three items from the PII and two new items (Mittal's
hedonic antecedent), and (3) remaining items from the PII to be discarded (Mittal's
"attitude-like" items, plus a potpourri of items (e.g., mundane, nonessential) thought to
be complexly worded).
Consumer Involvement Profile. In an independent line of inquiry, Laurent and Kapferer
(1985) proposed a quite different scale; the sixteen item, Likert scaled Consumer
Involvement Profile (CIP). Unlike Zaichkowsky's unidimensional scale, the CIP is
actually a series of subscales, each designed to measure an antecedent of product
involvement. When using the CIP, level of involvement must be inferred from observed
measurements on these antecedents. The five antecedents proposed by Kapferer and
Laurent include Interest, Pleasure, Sign, Risk Probability and Risk Importance.
The CIP has also been further analyzed and refined by Celuch and Evans (1989), Jain
and Srinivasan (1990), Kapferer and Laurent (1985a, 1985b, 1993), Mittal (1989a),
Mittal and Lee (1988), and Rodgers and Schneider (1993). Of particular concern here is
that two of Laurent and Kapferer's antecedents, Interest and Pleasure, seem to merge
into a single factor in studies using American consumers, a conclusion that was reached
independently by Jain and Srinivasan (1990), and by Rodgers and Schneider (1993).
Thus, in U.S. domestic use anyway, the CIP seems to contain four dimensions, (1)
Interest-Pleasure (Mittal's hedonic antecedent), (2) Sign, (3) Risk Probability, and (4)
Risk Importance. Indeed, in their most recent set of replication studies, Kapferer and
Laurent (1993) often found a similar merging of the Interest and Pleasure factors in
studies using French consumers.
Comparing the Scales' Structures. Consequently, two separate lines of scale
development research have led to scales with only one overlapping dimension; level of
interest in or pleasure derived from the product. In motivating their Interest subscale,
McQuarrie and Munson (1992) refer to it variously as emotional involvement (see, also,
Park and Mittal 1985, Vaughn 1986, and Zaichkowsky 1987) and as a measure of the
enjoyment derived from a product. Indeed, the two new items added to the PII and
included in the Interest subscaleCfun, and neat (as opposed to dull)Care direct measures
of pleasure. Thus, the Interest component of McQuarrie and Munson's revised version
of Zaichkowsky's PII and the merged Interest-Pleasure antecedent subscale in the CIP
should readily converge. (In fact, Celuch and Evans (1989) have already found fairly
large correlations between the original PII and the original Interest and Pleasure
subscales in the CIP.)
Whether this Interest-Pleasure subscale found to reside in the CIP (or, equivalently, this
new Interest subscale in the revised PII) constitutes a second dimension of involvement
or an involvement antecedent will be a matter of considerable debate for some time yet
to come. The authors here are inclined to support Mittal's characterization of Interest-
Pleasure as a hedonic antecedent of involvement, for several reasons. First, like all
constructs, product involvement can be as narrowly or broadly conceived as a
researcher chooses; it is hoped that continued research and discussion eventually leads
to definitional convergence. Whenever possible, however, parsimony suggests that
several rather narrowly defined constructs are preferable to few rather broadly defined
ones. As noted earlier, the core of product involvement concerns the importance or
relevance that a product assumes for a given consumer. Everything else can be just as
easily considered as either leading to, paralleling, or flowing from the importance that is
involvement.
Thus, like Mittal (1989a), the authors here contend that product involvement itself
should be narrowly conceived, encompassing only the importance or centrality of the
product to the consumer. Other facets, including the extent to which a consumer finds a
product or service category interesting or pleasurable, can be linked to involvement
without necessarily being involvement.
Indeed, in a temporal context, the authors strongly believe that Interest-Pleasure is more
properly considered a hedonic antecedent of involvement (as in the CIP) than as a
dimension of involvement (as in the PII). Certain products (e.g., hobbies, many
participative sports) come to mind as ones that are relevant and important to the
consumer precisely because of the pleasure they bring. It is difficult to imagine, for
example, the model railroader's or the amateur golfer's intense concern for their
respective associated products as being primarily derived from anything but the sheer
enjoyment of the activity (though it is stipulated that there may be contributory
symbolic value or risk related antecedents at work as well). For some product categories
and some consumers, then, importance or personal relevance is driven primarily by the
pleasure or interest inherently found in the product. For such products, Interest-Pleasure
is, indeed, an antecedent.
Also, certain other products (e.g., "life's little indulgences," some leisure activities) can
be thought of as being a source of interest or pleasure yet not particularly important to
many consumers. It is difficult to imagine, for example, that the consumption of a candy
bar or a VCR rental, while admittedly a source of at least temporary pleasure or interest,
would have any great relevance to the individual. In such situations, even a relatively
high level of perceived interest or pleasure does not result in the sorts of behavioral
outcomes normally associated with high involvement products. For instance, one rarely
sees more than a modicum of information seeking attendant to the purchase of a
chocolate bar or the latest video release. Thus, not all interesting or pleasurable products
seem to be involving, as would be the case if Interest-Pleasure were classified as a
second dimension of the product involvement construct.
In general, then, a compelling case can be argued for thinking of Interest-Pleasure as an
antecedent that can (but, not always must) lead to product involvement, and for thinking
of product involvement itself as a unidimensional concept that signifies the importance
or relevance of the product to the individual.
What is clear is that current versions of both the PII and the CIP are incompletely
structured. Specifically, the PII measures personal relevance or importance (ie., product
involvement itself), and one of several antecedents (ie., Interest-Pleasure). On the other
hand, the CIP measures a richer array of antecedents (ie., Interest-Pleasure, Risk
Importance, Risk Probability and Sign), but has no direct measure of personal relevance
or importance (ie., product involvement itself).
One acceptable solution for the researcher intent on measuring both product
involvement and its antecedents is to utilize a combination of the PII and CIP scales. In
doing so, one need only recognize that the two scales employ different response
formats; the PII uses a semantic differential format and the CIP uses a Likert format. A
second solution entails expanding either scale so that both product involvement and its
possible triggering antecedents can be measured under the same format. The next
section sets forth a proposed new subscale for the CIP; one designed to measure product
importance itself.
AN IMPORTANCE SUBSCALE FOR THE CIP
Exhibit 1 presents a seven item importance subscale that was crafted as a potential
addition to the CIP. These seven items were derived from several sources. One (IMP02)
is an item reassigned from the five item merged Interest-Pleasure subscale that resulted
from U.S. applications of the CIP (see Rodgers and Schneider 1993). (While IMP02, an
item from the original CIP Interest subscale, consistently loaded with four other items
measuring interest taken in or pleasure derived from a product, its wording ("I attach
great importance to selecting a C") is such that it should be realigned with other items
purporting to directly measure product importance instead of those that measure
Interest-Pleasure.) One item (IMP04) is an adaptation of an item that appeared in an
Importance subscale in an early version of the CIP (see Laurent and Kapferer 1985).
Three items (IMP03, IMP06, and IMP07) are unabashed Likert scaled versions of items
from the Importance subscale in the revised PII (see McQuarrie and Munson 1992).
Finally, two items (IMP01 and IMP05) were especially written for this new CIP
subscale. As with other items in the CIP, each of the seven items in the proposed
Importance subscale is measured with a five-point Likert scale.
The dimensionality and reliability of the proposed Importance subscale for the CIP were
investigated in two separate studies. Results from both studies appear in Exhibit 2.
Study 1: Health Care Clinic. Study 1 was conducted in conjunction with a survey of
customers and noncustomers of a major health care clinic in a mid-sized, upper midwest
MSA. Responses to the seven item Importance subscale only were obtained from 514
adult participants in the survey. Interviews were conducted by telephone, and queried
participants as to the importance attached to selecting a "health care clinic". Specific
responses (and associated numerical scores) were "totally agree" (1), "somewhat agree"
(2), "neither agree nor disagree" (3), "somewhat disagree" (4), and "totally disagree"
(5).
According to Exhibit 2(A), a factor analysis led to a one factor solution (with
Eigenvalue of 3.860) that explained 55.2% of the response variance. (Note that the
factor analytic routine did not prespecify a one factor solution; using a criterion
minimum Eigenvalue of 1.0, only one emerged.) An internal consistency analysis led to
an alpha of .846. Note, however, that IMP07 might be superfluous to the scale. Its factor
loading and item to total correlation were both lower than for the remaining six items.
Study 2: Financial Institution. Study 2 was conducted in conjunction with a survey of
customers and noncustomers of a financial institution serving a tri-county,
nonurbanized, upper midwest area. Responses to the seven item Importance subscale,
and to the four CIP antecedent subscales, were obtained from 267 adult participants in
the survey. Responses were obtained through a mailed questionnaire follow-up to a
preliminary telephone interview, and queried participants as to issues concerning the
selection of a "financial institution". Specific responses (and associated numerical
scores) were "totally disagree" (1), "disagree" (2), "neither agree nor disagree" (3),
"agree" (4), and "totally agree" (5).
According to Exhibit 2(B), results for Study 2 were virtually identical to those of Study
1. A single factor solution again emerged from the analysis (with Eigenvalue of 3.654),
and the full seven item subscale's alpha was .847.
EXHIBIT 1
PROPOSED "IMPORTANCE" ITEMS FOR CIP SCALE
EXHIBIT 2
PSYCHOMETRIC EVALUATION OF THE CIP "IMPORTANCE" SUBSCALE
Overall, then, this new Importance subscale for the CIP does appear to be
unidimensional with reasonable internal consistency. (In the interest of succinctness,
IMP07 can probably be deleted from the subscale; it adds little to the psychometric
properties of the subscale.) In addition, the respective item means suggest that far more
consumers agree than disagree that decisions about financial institutions are important
ones, and even more agree than disagree that decisions about medical clinics are
important ones. While far from even a minimally acceptable assessment of the
Importance subscale's validity, these results conform with what a reasonable person
would have expected a priori, and do at least tentatively establish that the subscale is
measuring what it purports to measure; perceived importance attached to a product, or
in this case, a service.
The Relationship Between Importance and its Antecedents
As previously noted, Laurent and Kapferer originally intended to include an Importance
subscale in the CIP. Ultimately, they gave up that goal, presumably because the
Importance subscale could not be isolated from other subscales in the CIP. But, if
Importance flows from one or another antecedent (or a combination thereof), one would
expect such a relationship to its antecedents to exist. Indeed, Importance is more
properly considered a dependent variable to the set of independent variable antecedents.
This would, of course, suggest searching for a regression relationship involving
Importance rather than attempting to isolate an independent Importance factor.
Exhibit 3 presents the results of such a regression analysis using the full set of CIP data
from Study 2 (with IMP07 deleted from the new Importance subscale). The complete
model was highly significant (F= 56.6; p < .001), with R-Squared of 53.6%.
There are significant relationships between Importance and each of the four CIP
antecedents in the model. Three of those relationships are linear. Consequently, it was
concluded that, at least so far as the choice of a financial institution is concerned,
product importance is linearly related to Interest-Pleasure, to Sign and to Risk
Importance. Among the three linear relations, that to Risk Importance was especially
strong. Based on the regression coefficients (which can be directly compared here
because all data was input as arithmetic "means" of five point scales), product
importance is particularly responsive to increases in risk importance. The choice of a
financial institution tends to become especially involving as, from one consumer to
another, the perceived consequences of a poor decision increase.
EXHIBIT 3
REGRESSION RESULTS FOR SIX ITEM CIP IMPORTANCE SUBSCALE
VERSUS FOUR INVOLVEMENT ANTECEDNTS STUDY 2: FINANCIAL
INSTITUTIONS
The fourth relationship, that between Importance and Risk Probability, is particularly
intriguing. The preliminary linear regression model resulted in a significant negative
coefficient being assigned to Risk Probability. Because such an inverse relationship
would have been counter to the expected linkage between perceived risk and
involvement, further analysis was undertaken. Indeed, the scatterplot reproduced in
Exhibit 4 suggested a quadratic relationship involving the Risk Probability antecedent.
So, squared terms for Risk Probability, and for each of the other three antecedents as
well, were constructed and allowed to enter the regression model. Only the quadratic
term for Risk Probability did so.
Apparently, then, there is a curvilinear relationship between the importance attached to
financial institutions and the perceived chance of making a poor decision. Consumers
who are quite confident of their ability to make a good choice, and those who are not at
all confident of their ability, tend to be more involved in the selection of a financial
institution than are consumers between these extremes.
Among the several plausible, if speculative, explanations for such a curvilinear
relationship, the authors offer the following. What if Exhibit 4 depicts a "point in time"
view of a dynamic process that includes, as an intervening variable, information
acquisition over time? That is, suppose consumers who perceive a given product or
service category as fraught with considerable potential for making purchase errors also
devote themselves to acquiring information and, ultimately, expertise, about that
product over time.
The extremes in Exhibit 4, then, might represent consumers at different points in the
acquisition of that expertise. Some consumersCperhaps younger onesCwho think of a
product category as particularly risky in terms of the chance of making a poor choice,
become very involved with those choices, including acquiring some level of expertise
about the product. Over time, these consumers, who maintain a consistent if not
growing level of involvement, nonetheless find themselves eventually with considerable
self-confidence in their decision making ability.
Meanwhile, other consumers, who perceive only a moderate level of risk probability
attendant to the decision, do not tend to become as involved and, hence, do not tend to
acquire information and expertise about the product. Consequently, their beliefs about
risk probability would tend to remain the same over time.
It is true that the acquisition of product expertise would also tend to characterize
consumers who become involved with a product via other antecedents; Interest-
Pleasure, Risk Importance or Sign. However, is it likely that product expertise would
alter neither the extent to which those consumers find the product category inherently
interesting, pleasurable or self-expressive, nor the perceived magnitude of external
negative consequences of a poor choice. Thus, the linear relationship between
involvement and these antecedents would be preserved, the acquisition of product
expertise notwithstanding.
At any rate, all of this is currently little more than pure speculation, except that product
importance remains curvilinearly related to the perceived risk probability attendant to
choosing a financial institution. Interesting extensions of this study might include (a)
determining whether the nature of this relationship holds across other product and
service categories, and (b) testing, perhaps in a structural equations environment, the
possibility that information acquisition serves, over time, as an intervening variable
between product importance and risk probability.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
The research reported herein attempted to "complete" the CIP scale developed by
Kapferer and Laurent by adding a subscale designed to measure the personal relevance
or importance of a product to the consumer. While in need of additional psychometric
evaluation, especially with respect to tests of validity, the CIP is now capable of
measuring product involvement itself (through this new Importance subscale), as well
as four crucial antecedents to such involvement.
The study also presented preliminary evidence that three of the antecedents (Interest-
Pleasure, Sign and Risk Importance) are linearly related to involvement, with Risk
Importance the most strongly related. The fourth antecedent, Risk Probability, appears
to be related to involvement in a curvilinear fashion. But, considerably more research
needs to be undertaken to replicate those relationships with other populations, and to
extend them to product and service categories other than financial institutions.
EXHIBIT 4
MEANS PLOT-IMPORTANCE SUBSCALE VERSUS RISK PROBABILITY
Finally, it appears as if researchers are inching ever closer to a generally accepted
involvement measurement scale. With the PII now expanded to encompass Interest-
Pleasure (and perhaps, eventually, other involvement antecedents as well), it and the
CIP move nearer and nearer to one another's dimensionality. Indeed, it is hoped that at
some point there is little to differentiate the two scales save for their response formats. It
was the authors intent here to encourage such a convergence.
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----------------------------------------

AUTHORS

Kenneth C. Schneider, St. Cloud State University

William C. Rodgers, St. Cloud State University

VOLUME
NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 23 | 1996