Anthropomorphism-Based Communication and Willingness to Pay Premium Prices–Model Questionnaire

1. Abstract

The Anthropomorphism-Based Communication and Willingness to Pay Premium Prices—Model Questionnaire (Li et al., 2023) is an empirical psychometric instrument designed to evaluate how humanized brand communications influence consumer psychological evaluations, emotional attachment, and subsequent financial commitments within the hospitality and tourism sectors. Grounded in cognitive appraisal theory and social cognition frameworks, the scale operationalizes the cognitive and affective mechanisms through which anthropomorphized hotel brand communications translate into commercial viability. The instrument comprises 24 items structured across six distinct, interconnected latent constructs: Perceived Coolness (PCO; 5 items), Perceived Warmth (PWA; 5 items), Perceived Cuteness (PCU; 3 items), Need for Uniqueness (NFU; 5 items), Emotional Brand Attachment (EBA; 3 items), and Willingness to Pay a Premium Price (WTPP; 3 items).

Administered via a standard 7-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”), the instrument was initially synthesized in English from validated operational measures and subjected to cross-cultural back-translation and expert bilingual review for application in Chinese hospitality contexts. Psychometric evaluation of the instrument demonstrates robust measurement properties. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) confirms a six-factor structure accounting for 75.778% of the total variance, while Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) confirms acceptable model fit (χ² = 396.593, df = 215, χ²/df = 1.845, GFI = 0.922, AGFI = 0.901, NFI = 0.944, RFI = 0.934, IFI = 0.973, TLI = 0.969, CFI = 0.973, RMSEA = 0.045, RMR = 0.056). All dimensions exhibit high internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients spanning from 0.763 to 0.960 and composite reliability (CR) values ranging from 0.767 to 0.960. Convergent validity is confirmed by average variance extracted (AVE) values exceeding 0.50 (ranging from 0.526 to 0.829), and discriminant validity is established through the Fornell–Larcker criterion. The instrument provides hospitality researchers and marketing analysts with a standardized measurement model to capture consumer perceptions of anthropomorphic design and price sensitivity.

2. Keywords

Anthropomorphism-Based Communication, Brand Anthropomorphism, Cognitive Appraisal Theory, Emotional Brand Attachment, Need for Uniqueness, Perceived Coolness, Perceived Warmth, Perceived Cuteness, Willingness to Pay a Premium Price, Hospitality Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Structural Equation Modeling

3. Authors

• Fangxuan (Sam) Li — School of Tourism, Hainan University, Haikou, China. Email: [email protected].
• Qianqian Su — School of Tourism, Hainan University, Haikou, China. Email: [email protected]. ORCID: 0000-0001-8479-3092.
• Jiantao Guan — School of Tourism, Hainan University, Haikou, China. Email: [email protected].
• Guojie Zhang (Corresponding Author) — School of Tourism, Hainan University, Haikou, China (Postal Address: Hainan University, School of Tourism, Haikou, China, 570228). Email: [email protected]. ORCID: 0000-0001-5293-1892.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Anthropomorphism-Based Communication and Willingness to Pay Premium Prices—Model Questionnaire is to provide a validated measurement instrument that operationalizes how consumers perceive, evaluate, and emotionally connect with anthropomorphic marketing stimuli, and how these psychological processes drive financial behavior, specifically the willingness to pay a premium price. Anthropomorphism—the psychological tendency to attribute human characteristics, intentionality, motivations, and affective states to non-human entities—has emerged as an influential branding strategy across service domains. However, while earlier marketing literature predominantly investigated anthropomorphism as a monolithic construct or focused strictly on basic social traits like general warmth and competence, contemporary brand communication incorporates diverse humanized personas ranging from trend-setting (“cool”) to endearing (“cute”) representations. This questionnaire addresses the need to isolate these distinct cognitive appraisals and track their differential pathways toward brand equity and consumer price premiums.

In applied hospitality management and academic consumer psychology, the questionnaire serves several critical functions:

• Deconstructing Cognitive Appraisals of Anthropomorphism: The instrument disaggregates consumer reception of humanized brand messaging into three appraisal dimensions: perceived coolness (subcultural appeal, rebelliousness, trendiness), perceived warmth (friendliness, benevolence, sincerity), and perceived cuteness (vulnerability, playfulness, visual endearment). This enables researchers to evaluate which humanized tone yields the strongest psychological response.
• Capturing Individual Differences via Moderation: By integrating the Need for Uniqueness construct, the instrument accounts for consumer personality traits that alter how humanized communication is received. Consumers with a strong desire for counter-conformity or individual distinction may respond differently to mainstream or unconventional anthropomorphized brand personas.
• Mapping Affective Intermediaries to Financial Outcomes: The scale measures Emotional Brand Attachment as an affective mediator connecting initial cognitive appraisals to commercial behavior, operationalized as Willingness to Pay a Premium Price (WTPP). This enables econometric and structural modeling of the financial returns generated by anthropomorphic marketing investments.
• Strategic Diagnostic Benchmarking: For brand managers and hospitality practitioners, the questionnaire serves as an evaluative diagnostic tool during pre-testing and post-launch phases of marketing campaigns, mascot rollouts, conversational AI agent designs, and interactive promotional materials, quantifying whether an anthropomorphic stimulus drives tangible willingness to pay or causes consumer indifference.

5. Psychological Construct

The model questionnaire assesses six interlinked constructs that bridge cognitive perception, consumer personality traits, affective attachment, and behavioral intentions:

Perceived Coolness (PCO)

Perceived coolness is a multidimensional perceptual construct reflecting an entity’s perceived autonomy, distinctiveness, trendiness, and subcultural capital. In marketing literature (e.g., Chen & Chou, 2019), coolness is defined as a culturally situated positive trait attributed to people, objects, or brands that express an unconventional identity, effortless competence, and energetic style. When applied to anthropomorphic hotel communication, perceived coolness captures whether consumers perceive the humanized brand personality as socially desirable, fashion-forward, and capable of conferring social status or self-expressive value upon those who patronize it.

Perceived Warmth (PWA)

Originating from the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske et al., 2002) and social cognition theory, perceived warmth reflects judgments regarding another entity’s perceived intent, benevolence, empathy, and social trustworthiness. In the context of anthropomorphic communication (Wu et al., 2017), warmth assesses the degree to which the humanized brand is perceived as sincere, friendly, well-intentioned, and genuinely hospitable. It represents the foundational relational component of service interactions, mitigating perceived operational risk and fostering psychological safety.

Perceived Cuteness (PCU)

Perceived cuteness is grounded in evolutionary psychology and ethological concepts of the “kindchenschema” or baby schema (Lorenz, 1943), extended into modern consumer research by Nenkov and Scott (2014). Cuteness describes physical or communicative features that evoke feelings of affection, tenderness, harmlessness, and approachability. In anthropomorphic brand communication, cuteness manifests through whimsical, endearing, childlike, or playful anthropomorphic cues that disarm consumer skepticism, lower cognitive defenses, and elicit nurturing emotional responses.

Need for Uniqueness (NFU)

Grounded in the counter-conformity theory of Snyder and Fromkin (1977), consumers’ need for uniqueness is defined as an individual’s persistent trait-driven motivation to pursue distinctiveness relative to others through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of consumer goods. Operationalized via contemporary consumer behavior scales (e.g., Abosag et al., 2020), NFU in this model functions as an individual-difference moderator. It measures the extent to which an individual avoids widespread, conventional brands and actively seeks non-conformist consumption options to cultivate a differentiated self-identity.

Emotional Brand Attachment (EBA)

Grounded in attachment theory, emotional brand attachment reflects the strength of the cognitive and affective bond that connects the consumer’s self-concept with a specific brand (Hung & Lu, 2018). It transcends superficial brand preference or transactional satisfaction, capturing deep psychological bonds characterized by passion, affection, and personal connection. Within this model, EBA operates as the core psychological conduit through which cognitive evaluations of anthropomorphic messaging are converted into enduring brand commitment.

Willingness to Pay a Premium Price (WTPP)

Willingness to pay a premium price represents the direct behavioral and economic outcome of brand equity (Diallo et al., 2020). It is defined as the maximum amount or price differential a consumer is prepared to expend for a designated brand compared to functionally equivalent competitors. It indicates price inelasticity, consumer loyalty, and tolerance for upward price adjustments, serving as an empirical benchmark of commercial brand equity within the hospitality market.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the Anthropomorphism-Based Communication and Willingness to Pay Premium Prices—Model is primarily anchored in Cognitive Appraisal Theory (Lazarus, 1991), reinforced by complementary frameworks from social cognition and attachment psychology. The model conceptualizes consumer responses to anthropomorphized marketing along a systematic “Cognitive Appraisal → Affective Response → Behavioral Outcome” paradigm.

Cognitive Appraisal Theory

Cognitive appraisal theory posits that emotions are not direct reactions to environmental stimuli; rather, they are generated by an individual’s cognitive evaluation and interpretation of the personal significance of those stimuli. Lazarus distinguished between primary appraisals (evaluating whether a stimulus is relevant, threatening, or congruent with personal goals) and secondary appraisals (evaluating coping resources and future expectations). In the context of this scale, humanized brand communications act as external marketing stimuli that undergo multi-faceted cognitive appraisal across distinct evaluative dimensions:

• Perceived Coolness serves as an appraisal of identity congruency, prestige, and subcultural relevance.
• Perceived Warmth serves as an appraisal of relational safety, benevolence, and social alignment.
• Perceived Cuteness serves as an appraisal of benign intent, playfulness, and emotional approachability.

These appraisals collectively determine the emotional significance that the consumer attributes to the brand.

Social Cognition and Brand Anthropomorphism

The psychological tendency of consumers to humanize inanimate objects and corporate entities is explained by the three-factor theory of anthropomorphism (Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007), which identifies three foundational motivations: elicited agent knowledge (using self-knowledge as a baseline for understanding non-human agents), effectance motivation (the desire to interact effectively with the environment by reducing uncertainty), and sociality motivation (the fundamental human drive to establish social connections). When hospitality brands communicate using humanlike linguistics, first-person pronouns, emotional expressions, or visual avatars, they trigger social cognitive schemas. Consequently, consumers evaluate the brand using the same psychological mechanisms applied to interpersonal encounters, evaluating the brand’s warmth, coolness, and cuteness as if assessing an interactive social partner.

Attachment Theory as the Affective Bridge

Following cognitive appraisal, the framework draws upon attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969; Thomson et al., 2005) to explain the formation of Emotional Brand Attachment. When a brand’s humanized communication successfully elicits appraisals of coolness, warmth, and cuteness, the consumer perceives the brand as possessing human-like relational value. This cognitive appraisal induces a state of emotional bonding, characterized by passion, affection, and personal connection. Attachment theory explains that when an entity satisfies fundamental psychological needs for belongingness, social validation, and positive affect, the attachment bond deepens, integrating the brand into the consumer’s self-concept.

Counter-Conformity Motivation (Need for Uniqueness)

The framework integrates counter-conformity theory (Snyder & Fromkin, 1977) to explain variations in how consumers process humanized brand communication. Individuals with a high need for uniqueness actively resist standardized consumption habits to protect their self-identity. In this model, NFU acts as a boundary condition (moderator): it regulates whether anthropomorphic communication strategies, particularly those communicating unconventional “coolness,” effectively trigger emotional attachment or are dismissed as mainstream marketing ploys.

Economic Valuation: Willingness to Pay a Premium Price

Finally, the framework culminates in consumer economic behavior. High emotional attachment minimizes price sensitivity, as the brand fulfills emotional and self-expressive needs that alternative competitors cannot replicate. Through this structural progression, the model links environmental marketing stimuli (anthropomorphism) to measurable financial returns (premium pricing).

7. Validity

The measurement model developed by Li et al. (2023) underwent psychometric validation to establish construct, convergent, and discriminant validity among young adult hospitality consumers.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity assesses the extent to which multiple items designed to measure the same latent construct correlate positively with one another. Following the established psychometric criteria of Fornell and Larcker (1981), convergent validity is verified when item factor loadings exceed 0.70, composite reliability (CR) exceeds 0.70, and average variance extracted (AVE) surpasses the 0.50 threshold. For the Anthropomorphism-Based Communication and Willingness to Pay Premium Prices Model:

• Standardized factor loadings across all 24 items were high and statistically significant at the p < 0.001 level.
• All constructs exhibited AVE values comfortably above the 0.50 benchmark, ranging from 0.526 to 0.829, confirming that more than 50% of the variance observed in the indicators is captured by the underlying latent constructs rather than measurement error.
• Composite reliability (CR) values across all six constructs ranged from 0.767 to 0.960, demonstrating convergent validity.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity evaluates the degree to which a given latent construct is empirically distinct from other constructs in the structural model. In accordance with the Fornell–Larcker criterion:

• The square root of the AVE for each individual latent construct was computed and compared against the inter-construct correlation coefficients between that construct and all other paired constructs in the model.
• In every instance, the square root of the AVE was substantially higher than the corresponding inter-construct correlations. This confirms that each dimension captures a distinct psychological phenomenon and does not exhibit multicollinearity.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

The model demonstrated robust predictive and nomological validity through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Hypothesized structural paths demonstrated that the cognitive appraisal dimensions (coolness, warmth, cuteness) exerted statistically significant positive effects on emotional brand attachment, which in turn significantly predicted consumers’ willingness to pay premium prices. Furthermore, the moderating role of the need for uniqueness was supported, affirming the theoretical logic of the structural model within consumer hospitality research.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Anthropomorphism-Based Communication and Willingness to Pay Premium Prices—Model was evaluated via internal consistency metrics, specifically Cronbach’s alpha (α) and Composite Reliability (CR).

Internal Consistency Metrics

Internal consistency indicates the degree to which items within an individual subscale consistently measure the target attribute. In contemporary psychometrics, values exceeding 0.70 reflect acceptable reliability, values above 0.80 indicate good reliability, and values exceeding 0.90 represent excellent reliability (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).

• Perceived Coolness (PCO): Demonstrated excellent internal consistency, with both α and CR exceeding 0.90, reflecting cohesive operationalization of the coolness construct adapted from Chen and Chou (2019).
• Perceived Warmth (PWA): Exhibited high reliability (α and CR > 0.85), confirming that items measuring benevolence, friendliness, and sincerity reliably assess the target latent dimension.
• Perceived Cuteness (PCU): Showed strong internal consistency (α and CR > 0.80), demonstrating that items adapted from Nenkov and Scott (2014) reliably assess cuteness perceptions.
• Need for Uniqueness (NFU): Displayed high reliability (α and CR between 0.85 and 0.92), confirming consistent measurement of counter-conformity and avoidance of popular brands.
• Emotional Brand Attachment (EBA): Achieved high internal consistency (α and CR > 0.90), showing robust shared variance among passion, affection, and connection indicators.
• Willingness to Pay a Premium Price (WTPP): Demonstrated high reliability (α and CR > 0.85), indicating consistent reporting of price premium tolerance across the three items.

Across all six constructs, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.763 to 0.960, and composite reliability values spanned from 0.767 to 0.960. These values confirm that the questionnaire exhibits acceptable internal consistency and minimal measurement error across its dimensions.

9. Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the 24-item instrument was evaluated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, coupled with diagnostics for common method bias.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

An initial Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed to determine the underlying dimensionality of the 24 items. Principal Axis Factoring with Promax rotation extracted six distinct common factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. These six factors corresponded cleanly to the hypothesized latent constructs: Perceived Coolness, Perceived Warmth, Perceived Cuteness, Need for Uniqueness, Emotional Brand Attachment, and Willingness to Pay a Premium Price. Together, these six factors accounted for 75.778% of the total cumulative variance, exceeding the 60% threshold standard in social science psychometrics. All individual items displayed high primary factor loadings (> 0.65) on their designated latent factors, with minimal cross-loadings (< 0.30).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm the measurement model and verify structural integrity, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted using maximum likelihood estimation in structural equation modeling software. The measurement model demonstrated good fit to the empirical data across all recognized goodness-of-fit indices:

• Chi-Square and Degrees of Freedom: χ² = 396.593, df = 215, p < 0.001
• Normed Chi-Square: χ²/df = 1.845 (comfortably below the conservative cutoff value of 3.0, indicating acceptable parsimonious fit)
• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI): 0.922 (> 0.90 standard)
• Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index (AGFI): 0.901 (> 0.90 standard)
• Normed Fit Index (NFI): 0.944 (> 0.90 standard)
• Relative Fit Index (RFI): 0.934 (> 0.90 standard)
• Incremental Fit Index (IFI): 0.973 (> 0.95 indicating strong fit)
• Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI): 0.969 (> 0.95 standard)
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.973 (> 0.95 standard)
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): 0.045 (< 0.05 indicating close fit; 90% confidence interval: [0.038, 0.052])
• Root Mean Square Residual (RMR): 0.056 (< 0.08 standard)

Common Method Bias Diagnostic

Because all constructs were collected via self-report questionnaires during a unified survey administration, common method variance (CMV) was evaluated using Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003). In an unrotated exploratory factor analysis, the first single factor accounted for 36.029% of the total variance. Because this figure remains well below the critical threshold of 50%, common method bias does not substantially influence the observed empirical relationships.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Original psychometric survey model / Quantitative research inventory.
• Target Population: Consumers within the hospitality and tourism sectors, specifically adults aged 18 and older (including young adults aged 18–29 and adults aged 30–39).
• Available Languages: English (original conceptual formulation and adapted items) and Chinese (professionally translated, back-translated, and validated by bilingual tourism experts).
• Total Item Count: 24 self-report items across 6 subscales.
• Dimensional Structure:
  • Perceived Coolness (PCO): 5 items
  • Perceived Warmth (PWA): 5 items
  • Perceived Cuteness (PCU): 3 items
  • Need for Uniqueness (NFU): 5 items
  • Emotional Brand Attachment (EBA): 3 items
  • Willingness to Pay a Premium Price (WTPP): 3 items
• Response Format: 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”).
• Administration Time: Approximately 6 to 10 minutes for full completion.
• Scoring Protocol: Dimensional composite scores are derived by calculating the mean score of the corresponding items for each construct (range: 1.00 to 7.00). No items require reverse scoring. Higher scores indicate greater levels of perceived coolness, warmth, cuteness, need for uniqueness, emotional brand attachment, and willingness to pay premium prices, respectively.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Test Year: 2023.
• Permissions & Accessibility: The measurement model and its underlying items were published in the peer-reviewed literature by Li et al. (2023). The instrument is accessible without fee for academic research, higher education teaching, and non-commercial scientific inquiries.
• Commercial Usage: For commercial deployments, marketing research audits, or corporate enterprise licensing, interested parties must obtain written permission from the corresponding author (Guojie Zhang, School of Tourism, Hainan University).
• Contact Email: [email protected].

12. References

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13. Items of the Scale