The Material Values Scale: Measurement Properties and Development of a Short Form

Abstract

In recent years, a number of studies have used the material values scale (MVS) developed by Richins and Dawson (1992) to examine materialism as a facet of consumer behavior. This research examines the MVS in light of the accumulated evidence concerning this measure. A review of published studies reporting information about the scale and analysis of 15 raw data sets that contain the MVS and other measures revealed that the MVS performs well in terms of reliability and empirical usefulness, but the dimensional structure proposed by Richins and Dawson is not always evident in the data. This article proposes a 15-item measure of the MVS that has better dimension properties than the original version. It also reports the development of a short version of the MVS. Scale lengths of nine, six, and three items were investigated. Results indicate that the nine-item version possesses acceptable psychometric properties when used to measure materialism at a general level. This article also describes a psychometric approach for developing shorter versions of extant multiitem measures.