Connection to Prior Owners of the Product (CPOP)

1. Abstract

The Connection to Prior Owners of the Product (CPOP) scale is a concise, three-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to measure the extent to which an individual experiences an interpersonal, psychological bond with the previous possessors of a physical object through shared ownership. Developed by consumer psychologists Ayelet Fishbach and Feifei Huang (2021), the scale operationalizes the socio-emotional bridging function that secondhand, vintage, and previously owned goods afford to consumers. Rather than viewing pre-owned merchandise solely through utilitarian, economic, or physical contamination frameworks, the CPOP scale captures the symbolic capacity of artifacts to foster feelings of shared taste, interpersonal communion, and perceived social connection. The instrument employs a 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”), yielding a unidimensional composite score. Across multiple empirical investigations involving consumer choice, induced social isolation, and chronic loneliness, the CPOP scale exhibits robust psychometric integrity, featuring high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically ranging from .82 to .91), clear unidimensional factor structure, and strong construct validity. Crucially, the measure functions as a validated mediator explaining why consumers experiencing loneliness or social deficits exhibit heightened purchase intent and willingness to pay for previously owned items over brand-new alternatives. By quantifying the latent communal linkages embedded in secondhand exchange, the CPOP scale provides behavioral scientists, consumer psychologists, and market researchers with a targeted diagnostic tool for investigating compensatory consumption, object-mediated social surrogacy, and sustainable circular-economy adoption.

2. Keywords

Connection to Prior Owners, CPOP Scale, Secondhand Consumption, Loneliness, Compensatory Consumption, Perceived Interpersonal Connection, Shared Taste, Extended Self, Consumer Psychology, Psychometrics

3. Authors

The scale was developed and empirically validated by:

• Feifei Huang — Associate Professor of Marketing, School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University / CUHK Business School, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research centers on consumer behavior, psychological distance, interpersonal connection, and compensatory decision-making processes.
• Ayelet Fishbach — Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago. An internationally recognized expert on motivation, self-regulation, goal pursuit, and social psychology.

Primary Citation: Huang, F., & Fishbach, A. (2021). Feeling lonely increases interest in previously owned products. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(5), 968–980. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211026042

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Connection to Prior Owners of the Product (CPOP) scale is to quantify an elusive yet influential socio-psychological phenomenon: the subjective experience of social connectedness derived from possessing or considering an object previously owned by another human being. Traditional economic and consumer research models have historically conceptualized used goods through the lens of depreciation, functional utility, cost discounting, or risk of physical and microbial contamination. While research on the “law of contagion” demonstrates that physical objects can elicit disgust when associated with unknown others, Huang and Fishbach identified a powerful countervailing psychological mechanism wherein objects serve as interpersonal conduits, facilitating a sense of social belonging and taste homophily.

The CPOP scale was developed specifically to test this social bridging hypothesis within the framework of compensatory consumption. When individuals experience an unmet need for social belonging—such as chronic social isolation, situational loneliness, or transient social exclusion—they actively seek mechanisms to restore social equilibrium. The CPOP scale assesses the degree to which an individual views a used product not merely as a physical tool or aesthetic possession, but as a shared communal touchpoint that bridges the psychological distance between self and others. Research applications of the scale encompass:

• Explaining Secondhand Market Dynamics: Disentangling economic motives (price sensitivity, thriftiness) and environmental motives (sustainability, circular consumption) from socio-emotional and relational motives in vintage, antique, and thrift shopping.
• Mediation Analyses in Experimental Consumer Psychology: Serving as an established statistical mediator linking psychological states of isolation or social exclusion to downstream preferences for used versus brand-new consumer packaged goods, apparel, books, and furnishings.
• Investigating Parasocial and Vicarious Relationships: Examining how material artifacts facilitate imagined or symbolic relationships with anonymous peers, previous generations, or specific cultural subcultures.
• Product Design and Sustainable Business Strategy: Helping sustainable business enterprises understand the psychological levers that increase consumer receptivity toward re-commerce, refurbished electronics, and collaborative consumption systems.

5. Psychological Construct

The CPOP construct reflects a multidimensional underlying reality captured within a focused, parsimonious latent factor. It gauges the subjective cognitive-affective appraisal that an object embodies a shared human lineage, signifying commonality and psychological kinship with prior owners. The construct comprises three primary interrelated facets:

Direct Felt Interpersonal Connection

This facet assesses the immediate, phenomenological sense of affinity or warmth directed toward the antecedent possessors of an item. Prior literature in anthropology and cultural sociology has long noted that objects can carry a residual “spiritual” or social presence (the concept of hau or social contagion). Within the CPOP framework, this presence is cognitively appraised as benign and socially affiliative rather than contaminating. When consumers handle a pre-owned hardcover novel, vintage timepiece, or pre-owned acoustic guitar, this facet captures the feeling that an invisible, benevolent social link exists across time between the current user and the historical possessors.

Affiliative Shared-Possession Ideation

The second facet measures the positive affective valuation of commonality—specifically, the degree to which an individual enjoys or values the premise of having something in common with other people. Possessing an artifact that passed through another person’s daily life represents an implicit form of indirect interaction. This component captures the intrinsic pleasure or comfort derived from mutual engagement with the identical physical medium, functioning as an indirect bridge that mitigates perceived social separation.

Taste Homophily and Value Alignment Reminders

The third facet captures the epistemic and symbolic cueing function of the product. Objects are visible physical manifestations of aesthetic choices, cognitive preferences, and cultural values. When an individual purchases or uses an item that another person previously selected and cherished, the product operates as an enduring cognitive reminder of taste homophily. It signals to the consumer that they are not completely idiosyncratic or isolated in their sensibilities; rather, their preferences are shared and validated by peers within the broader social collective.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture underpinning the CPOP scale is grounded in three foundational paradigms of social psychology and consumer behavior:

The Need to Belong and Social Surrogacy Theory

Baumeister and Leary’s (1995) seminal Need to Belong hypothesis posits that human beings possess an innate, fundamental drive to establish and sustain lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships. When this drive is thwarted—resulting in subjective states of loneliness or social alienation—the social monitoring system becomes hyper-activated, compelling the individual to seek alternative avenues for social affiliation. When real-time human interaction is unavailable, individuals frequently turn to “social surrogates,” such as television characters, parasocial relationships, comfort foods, or anthropomorphized objects. The CPOP scale operationalizes a unique form of social surrogacy: material-mediated human connection. The object serves as a physical surrogate that mentally connects the individual to real, albeit anonymous or absent, human beings.

Compensatory Consumption Framework

Formulated by Rucker and Galinsky (2008), the compensatory consumption framework suggests that consumers strategically use products and consumption behaviors to alleviate underlying psychological threats, self-discrepancies, and emotional deficiencies. Huang and Fishbach (2021) demonstrated that loneliness functions as a specific psychological deficit that motivates compensatory affiliative actions. While lonely individuals may find direct interpersonal outreach socially risky or intimidating due to fears of negative evaluation, connecting with prior owners via a secondhand item entails zero threat of rejection. The CPOP construct explains why lonely individuals deliberately tilt their preferences toward previously owned products: doing so functions as a low-risk compensatory mechanism that symbolically replenishes perceived social connectedness.

The Extended Self and Symbolic Contagion

Russell Belk’s (1988) foundational theory of the Extended Self demonstrated that individuals incorporate possessions into their self-concept, leaving an indelible psychological imprint on the objects they own. In anthropological terms, classical contagion theory (Rozin et al., 1986) suggested that physical contact causes an irreversible transfer of physical or moral properties between a person and an object. While consumer research traditionally focused on negative contagion (e.g., disgust toward clothing touched by a stranger; Argo, Dahl, & Morales, 2006), the theoretical framework of CPOP elucidates positive, affiliative contagion. When an individual desires connection, the prior owner’s residual psychological essence is perceived not as a pathogenic contaminant, but as an authentic human footprint that imbues the item with relational warmth.

7. Validity

The CPOP scale has undergone rigorous empirical validation across multiple laboratory experiments and field studies, demonstrating exemplary construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity:

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was established across multiple studies in Huang and Fishbach (2021). The authors confirmed that experimental manipulations designed to induce loneliness (e.g., autobiographical recall of feelings of isolation, or reading evocative scenarios of social exclusion) reliably produced statistically significant elevations in CPOP scores relative to control conditions. Convergent validity is evidenced by strong positive correlations with related interpersonal constructs, including generalized motivation to affiliate, receptivity to shared consumption experiences, and parasocial relationship engagement.

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, empirical investigations demonstrated that the CPOP scale is distinct from alternative explanations commonly associated with secondhand consumption:

• Cost / Price Sensitivity: CPOP scores do not correlate significantly with general frugality, price consciousness, or perceived financial constraints, demonstrating that the construct is psychological and relational rather than economic.
• Physical Contamination / Disgust Sensitivity: Studies controlling for individual differences in disgust sensitivity (using standardized scales such as the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale) revealed that CPOP operates independently of physical contamination concerns. When items were thoroughly cleaned, sanitized, or restored, the positive effect of loneliness on CPOP remained intact, proving that CPOP taps social connection rather than tolerance of physical grime.
• Product Aesthetics and Vintage Nostalgia: CPOP remains a significant predictor even when controlling for vintage aesthetic appreciation, historical interest, or general antique appeal.

Predictive and Mediational Validity

The scale demonstrates robust predictive utility. In formal mediation analyses utilizing bootstrapping procedures (e.g., Hayes’ PROCESS Macro Model 4), the CPOP scale consistently demonstrated significant indirect effects, successfully mediating the relationship between induced/measured loneliness and consumer outcome variables. Specifically, elevated CPOP scores directly predict:

• Higher purchase intentions for previously owned clothing, electronics, books, and home décor.
• Increased willingness to pay (WTP) in incentivized BDM (Becker-DeGroot-Marschak) auction mechanisms for used products over identical new models.
• Greater willingness to adopt shared or circular consumption business models.

8. Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the CPOP scale has been verified through repeated empirical evaluations across diverse consumer cohorts:

Internal Consistency

Across the experimental studies reported by Huang and Fishbach (2021), the three-item instrument demonstrated high internal consistency reliability:

• In Study 3 (evaluating pre-owned home goods and accessories among online adult participants), the internal consistency coefficient was strong: Cronbach’s α = .88.
• In Study 4 (examining real product choices and willingness to pay across different consumer categories), the scale yielded an identical high reliability of Cronbach’s α = .88.
• Subsequent conceptual replications and boundary-condition studies consistently report Cronbach’s α values falling securely within the recommended psychometric threshold of .82 to .91, indicating high item inter-relatedness without excessive item redundancy.
• Composite Reliability (CR) and McDonald’s ω values across studies exceed .85, further corroborating excellent internal consistency.

Measurement Stability

Because the CPOP scale is commonly deployed to evaluate specific target stimuli (i.e., state-level reactions to a particular product), test-retest reliability is context-dependent. However, when evaluating the generalized disposition to connect with prior owners across stable product classes, the measure displays stable cross-situational consistency across repeated laboratory measurement blocks.

9. Factor Analysis

Both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) have confirmed the parsimonious, unidimensional structural integrity of the CPOP scale:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When subjected to principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood extraction with unrotated solutions across experimental datasets, the three items consistently load onto a single dominant latent factor:

• Eigenvalues: A single factor accounts for the vast majority of the variance (typically exceeding 72% to 78% of the total variance extracted), with the second factor yielding an eigenvalue well below Kaiser’s criterion (< 0.50).
• Scree Plot: Visual inspection of scree plots across validation samples shows a distinct, unambiguous drop-off after the first component.
• Factor Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across all three items are consistently robust, typically ranging from .81 to .92. Item 1 (“I feel a sense of connection…”) regularly exhibits the highest loading (.89–.92), functioning as the primary psychometric anchor of the latent construct.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Indices

Structural equation modeling and CFA evaluations confirm that a single-factor latent model provides an exceptional fit to empirical data. Typical goodness-of-fit metrics reported in structural evaluations show:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): ≥ .99 (indicating near-perfect fit relative to the baseline null model).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): ≥ .98.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): ≤ .045 (90% CI [.000, .082]), satisfying stringent criteria for close model fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): ≤ .022.

The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) consistently exceeds the .50 benchmark (routinely > .70), demonstrating that the latent variable accounts for the vast majority of variance in its indicator items, confirming strong convergent validity at the latent level.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale; state- or stimulus-specific consumer evaluation instrument.
• Format: Paper-and-pencil or computer-assisted self-administered questionnaire (Qualtrics, MTurk, Prolific, laboratory computer terminals).
• Item Count: 3 items.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Somewhat disagree, 4 = Neither agree nor disagree, 5 = Somewhat agree, 6 = Agree, 7 = Strongly agree).
• Scoring Rules:
  • All three items are positively keyed; there are no reverse-scored items.
  • An overall index score is calculated by computing the arithmetic mean across the three items: Total CPOP Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3.
  • Scores range continuously from 1.00 to 7.00, with higher values reflecting a stronger subjective sense of interpersonal connection to the prior owners and greater taste-alignment ideation.
• Administration Time: Under 1 minute (approximately 30 to 45 seconds), making it exceptionally suitable for experimental research designs without inducing participant fatigue.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Test Year: 2021.
• Original Publication: Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 58, Issue 5, pages 968–980.
• Copyright & Permissions: The scale items and validation data are copyrighted by the American Marketing Association (AMA) and the authors (Feifei Huang and Ayelet Fishbach).
• Fee: Free for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical purposes, and non-profit scholarly investigations. Commercial use, inclusion in proprietary consumer diagnostics, or corporate deployment requires standard copyright clearance and permission from the American Marketing Association or the authors.

12. References

• Argo, J. J., Dahl, D. W., & Morales, A. C. (2006). Consumer contamination: How dirty friends, strangers, and certain celebrities make us want to buy or shy away. Journal of Marketing, 70(2), 81–94. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.70.2.081
• Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
• Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1086/209154
• Huang, F., & Fishbach, A. (2021). Feeling lonely increases interest in previously owned products. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(5), 968–980. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211026042
• Rozin, P., Millman, L., & Nemeroff, C. (1986). Operation of the laws of sympathetic magic in normal and disgust-related behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(4), 703–712. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.4.703
• Rucker, D. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Desire to acquire: Powerlessness and compensatory consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(2), 257–267. https://doi.org/10.1086/588569

13. Items of the Scale