Consumers' Need for Uniqueness: Scale Development and Validation

By Kelly Tian, W. O. Bearden, Gary L. Hunter. 2001

1,816 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Consumers acquire and display material possessions for the purpose of feeling differentiated from other people and, thus, are targeted with a variety of marketing stimuli that attempt to enhance self-perceptions of uniqueness. Because the pursuit of differentness (or counterconformity motivation) varies across individuals to influence consumer responses, we develop and validate a trait measure of consumers' need for uniqueness. Consumers' need for uniqueness is defined as an individual's pursuit of differentness relative to others that is achieved through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of consumer goods for the purpose of developing and enhancing one's personal and social identity. Following assessments of the scale's latent structure, a series of validation studies examines the scale's validity. The presentation of empirical work is followed by a discussion of how consumers' need for uniqueness could be used in better understanding consumer behavior and the role consumption plays in people's expression of identity. Copyright 2001 by the University of Chicago.

Subfields: Marketing, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/21bea8cf24226a8b4a831b12361f32783adbf84c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Marketing

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

The Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intention of Young Researchers: Combining the Theory of Planned Behavior with the Triple Helix Model (2019, background): “This study only retained the items that seven judges evaluated as “clearly representative” and that an eighth judge evaluated as somewhat representative (Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose 2001; Tian, Bearden, and Hunter 2001; Zaichkowsky 1985).”
Beyond Achievement: Entrepreneurship as Extreme Experience (2006, result): “’’ Next, responses on the remaining scale items were summed for each of the constructs and individual item correlations with constructs they purport to measure were compared to their correlations with other constructs (cf., Bearden et al., 1989; Tian et al., 2001).”
Personality, person–brand fit, and brand community: An investigation of individuals, brands, and brand communities (2011, methodology): “When using or displaying an object – including a branded product – its meaning is transferred to the user or consumer (Tian, Bearden, & Hunter, 2001 ).”
Values associated with luxury brand consumption and the role of gender (2017, background): “Three items from Tian et al. (2001) measured CNFU.”
Unique like everybody else? The dual role of consumers' need for uniqueness (2008, background): “Although such differentiation is sometimes used by those unable to distinguish themselves in a socially appropriate manner, Tian, Bearden, and Hunter (2001) argue that like creative choice counterconformity, unpopular choices may also enhance self-image and social image.”
Identifiable but Not Identical: Combining Social Identity and Uniqueness Motives in Choice (2012, methodology): “Finally, participants completed the Consumer Need for Uniqueness scale (Cronbach’s a p .93; Tian et al. 2001).”