Inauthenticity of Product Consumption

Abstract

The Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale is a psychometric measurement instrument developed by Dafna Goor, Nailya Ordabayeva, Anat Keinan, and Sandrine Crener (2020) to assess the psychological state of felt inauthenticity, perceived phoniness, and consumption-induced impostor syndrome experienced by individuals when consuming or displaying high-status, luxury, or symbolic goods. Grounded in the theoretical intersection of consumer behavior, social psychology, and the clinical construct of the impostor phenomenon, the instrument operationalizes the subjective feeling that a consumer’s outward display of prestigious artifacts fails to reflect their authentic self-concept. The scale consists of four unidimensional self-report items evaluated on a 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). Across multiple laboratory experiments, longitudinal observations, and naturalistic field studies conducted among diverse demographic groups—including affluent consumers, luxury boutique patrons, and university cohorts—the scale has demonstrated robust psychometric integrity. Internal consistency reliability estimates routinely yield Cronbach’s alpha coefficients between .87 and .94. Confirmatory factor analyses corroborate an invariant, single-factor latent structure characterized by strong, uniform factor loadings (all exceeding .80). Convergent validity is confirmed via significant associations with heightened self-directed negative affect, generalized impostorism, compensatory consumption tendencies, and reduced feelings of deservingness. Discriminant validity demonstrates its statistical independence from general self-esteem, baseline brand affinity, perceived product quality, and objective socioeconomic status. The instrument serves as a critical diagnostic tool in empirical consumer research, behavioral economics, self-concept research, and marketing analytics, capturing paradoxical consumer experiences where status-enhancing purchases induce psychological distress rather than elevation.

Keywords

Inauthenticity of Product Consumption, impostor syndrome from luxury consumption, consumer inauthenticity, authentic self, symbolic consumption, luxury goods, social signaling, psychometrics, consumer psychology, self-discrepancy theory.

Authors

The scale was developed and psychometrically validated by an international team of behavioral scientists and marketing scholars specializing in consumer psychology, status signaling, and luxury branding:

• Dafna Goor, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor of Marketing, London Business School, Regent’s Park, London, United Kingdom. Specializes in luxury brand management, consumer identity, status signaling, and self-authenticity dynamics. Email: [email protected].
• Nailya Ordabayeva, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Business Administration (Marketing), Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Focuses on social hierarchy, inequality, sensory perception, and consumer decision-making.
• Anat Keinan, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Questrom School of Business, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Expert in consumer behavior, hedonic consumption, status symbols, and temporal decision framing.
• Sandrine Crener, MBA — Program Director and Research Affiliate, Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Focuses on executive brand strategy, retailing, luxury ecosystem analysis, and consumer experience.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale is to quantify the subjective psychological friction and felt inauthenticity that consumers experience when consuming, wearing, or publicly displaying products that symbolize social status, prestige, or wealth. For decades, traditional economic models, classic sociological paradigms—such as Thorstein Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption—and prevailing marketing theories assumed that the acquisition of prestigious items unambiguously provides psychological utility, elevating self-esteem, signaling competence, and fostering social approval. However, the Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale addresses the theoretical necessity to detect and measure the inverse, paradoxical psychological toll associated with luxury consumption: the acute sense that an activity feels performed rather than genuine, casting the user into an internal state of behavioral fraudulence.

In clinical, counseling, and organizational consumer psychology, the scale illuminates the micro-foundations of consumption-mediated distress. The impostor syndrome experienced during consumption manifests when an individual believes that their external possession represents a fabricated self-identity that misaligns with their internal attributes, knowledge, or societal status. Consequently, rather than deriving confidence from a high-status purchase, the consumer perceives the item as an unearned or unrepresentative façade, leading to hypervigilance regarding social exposure, self-judgment, and diminished emotional well-being. By measuring this phenomenon, clinicians and consumer researchers can identify how materialistic or aspirational pursuits may undermine individual mental health and precipitate cycles of compensatory buying, avoidance behaviors, or diminished subjective happiness.

From an applied behavioral research and market research standpoint, the scale serves several essential functions:

• Diagnostics for Luxury Brand Management: Identifies consumer segments vulnerable to post-purchase dissatisfaction, psychological discomfort, and brand detachment stemming from felt inauthenticity.
• Mechanistic Mediation Testing: Functions as a mediator in experimental paradigms investigating why consumers who display luxury items frequently opt out of subsequent high-performance tasks, demonstrate lower confidence, or curtail public usage of the purchased products.
• Intervention Design: Provides a benchmark for testing marketing framing interventions—such as authentic brand storytelling, craftsmanship narratives, or internal entitlement appeals—intended to mitigate impostor feelings and foster intrinsic product connection.
• Cross-Cultural Status Analysis: Enables researchers to examine how cultural orientations, such as power distance, tight-versus-loose social norms, and collectivism versus individualism, modulate the severity of consumption-induced inauthenticity across international markets.

Psychological Construct

The construct operationalized by this scale is consumption-induced inauthenticity (also conceptualized as the impostor syndrome from luxury consumption). Psychologically, authenticity is defined as the unobstructed operation of one’s core or “true” self in one’s daily enterprise (Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Wood et al., 2008). Conversely, state inauthenticity involves acting in a manner that contradicts internal values, core competencies, or baseline self-understandings, thereby producing feelings of acting like an impostor, fraud, or fake.

Within consumer settings, the construct reflects a state-level, multi-faceted affective-cognitive experience characterized by three intertwined experiential facets:

1. Self-Alienation and Disconnection from the “Real Me”

This component captures the cognitive realization that an object or behavioral display is discontinuous with the consumer’s genuine baseline self. In symbolic consumption theory (Belk, 1988), products are integrated into the “extended self.” However, when consumption feels inauthentic, this integration fails entirely. The individual experiences psychological dissonance wherein the possession is viewed as foreign or incongruous. For instance, an individual wearing an ultra-luxury timepiece may evaluate the artifact as an external mask rather than an organic manifestation of their personality, prompting the conscious judgment that using the product “does not feel like the real me.”

2. Perceived Impostorism and Behavioral Fraudulence

Originating from the clinical conceptualization of the impostor phenomenon (Clance & Imes, 1978), this facet involves the acute fear and conviction that one is masquerading as someone of superior taste, wealth, sophistication, or status without possessing legitimate claims to those attributes. In the consumption domain, consumers afflicted by this state worry that their public display of status sends a false social signal that deceives observers. This generates an internal sensation of being a “fake” or a “charlatan” who has unjustly appropriated the social cues of an elevated socioeconomic stratum.

3. Performative Consumption Friction

This dimension reflects the psychological labor of feeling that consumption is a calculated, unnatural theatrical performance rather than an uninhibited, spontaneous expression. When consumers experience high inauthenticity, their behavioral engagement with the product shifts from experiential appreciation to vigilant impression management. The individual becomes hyper-attuned to social gaze, anticipating that discrepancies between their internal self-worth and external possessions will be unmasked by peers. This performative friction counteracts hedonic pleasure, triggering psychological discomfort, shame, and reduced consumer confidence.

Theoretical Framework

The development of the Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale rests on a multidisciplinary theoretical framework synthesizing self-discrepancy theory, self-verification theory, the extended self, and social signaling paradigms.

Self-Discrepancy Theory

According to E. Tory Higgins’ (1987) self-discrepancy theory, individuals evaluate themselves against internal psychological standards, including the actual self (representations of attributes the person actually possesses), the ideal self (representations of hopes, aspirations, or wishes), and the ought self (representations of duties, obligations, or responsibilities). When individuals consume luxury or high-status goods, the symbolic meaning of the product projects an elevated, ideal, or ought self-representation. If a vast psychological gap exists between this projected persona and the individual’s baseline actual self-concept, a pronounced self-discrepancy is initiated. Unlike circumstances where status products bridge this gap, high-status consumption can acutely accentuate this discrepancy, transforming the product into a tangible, persistent reminder that one is falling short of the authenticity criteria demanded by the actual self.

Self-Verification Theory

William Swann’s (1983) self-verification theory posits that individuals are fundamentally motivated to preserve stable, coherent self-views and desire others to perceive them as they perceive themselves. While self-enhancement theories assume individuals perpetually seek to project the most favorable image possible, self-verification demonstrates that displays inconsistent with one’s self-concept generate intense psychological discomfort. When consumers acquire luxury items that overstate their perceived status, resources, or lifestyle, self-verification needs are severely violated. The individual perceives that they are engineering an inaccurate social perception, resulting in psychological distress, self-reproach, and the profound feeling of being an impostor.

The Extended Self and Symbolic Interactionism

Russell Belk’s (1988) formulation of the Extended Self, nested within symbolic interactionism, asserts that possessions serve as major conduits for identity development and communication. Possessions only successfully augment the self when an individual feels psychological ownership and alignment with the item’s identity. Goor et al. (2020) demonstrated that when items are categorized as luxury or excessively high-status, the boundary between the self and the possession hardens. Instead of the product being incorporated into the self, the product is perceived as dominating or misrepresenting the self, causing the consumer to experience the object as an alien, inauthentic encumbrance.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale has been extensively documented through construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive/criterion-related experimental paradigms in both laboratory and natural field settings (Goor et al., 2020).

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was established through systematic operationalization across diverse consumption contexts, encompassing luxury clothing, fine jewelry, exotic automotive brands, and high-end accessories. Confirmatory factor analysis across multiple independent participant samples confirmed that the four items coalesce cleanly onto a single, tightly defined latent factor. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values consistently surpass the recommended threshold of .50 (frequently exceeding .70), demonstrating that the majority of variance in the observed indicators is directly attributable to the underlying inauthenticity construct.

Convergent Validity

The scale demonstrates robust convergent validity with closely aligned cognitive and affective constructs:

• State Impostor Phenomenon: Correlates strongly and positively (r > .65, p < .001) with adapted contextual versions of the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS).
• Negative Self-Conscious Affect: Demonstrates significant positive correlations with feelings of unease, shame, and guilt during product usage (r values ranging from .48 to .62).
• Felt Inauthenticity Scales: Demonstrates high convergence (r > .70) with generalized domain-specific authenticity scales (e.g., Wood et al., 2008) when indexed specifically to consumption episodes.

Discriminant Validity

Extensive empirical testing differentiates the scale from conceptually distinct psychological traits and attitudes:

• General Self-Esteem: Evaluated alongside the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, consumption inauthenticity demonstrated weak, non-redundant negative correlations (typically r = -.15 to -.24), confirming that inauthenticity is not merely a manifestation of low chronic self-esteem.
• Brand Evaluation and Quality Perceptions: Discriminant validity analyses demonstrated that consumers can simultaneously rate a luxury brand as exceptionally high in quality, prestige, and aesthetic appeal while scoring high on consumption inauthenticity (r < .10, non-significant), demonstrating that the construct reflects an internal self-possession rift rather than brand derogation.
• Chronic Impostor Tendencies: While related, the situational product-induced scale predicted behavioral avoidance uniquely above and beyond chronic individual differences in trait impostorism.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The scale possesses demonstrated predictive power regarding consumer behavioral downstream consequences:

• Behavioral Avoidance and Divestment: High scores on the scale reliably predict consumers’ reluctance to wear or display the luxury item in public, greater inclinations to return the item to the retailer, and heightened preferences to re-sell the product on secondary markets.
• Compensatory Performance Decrements: In lab experiments, consumers induced into high inauthenticity via luxury consumption scored significantly lower on subsequent cognitive performance tasks and manifested reduced confidence, driven by the psychological burden of perceived fraudulence.
• Field Experimentation: In naturalistic field studies conducted among affluent patrons at luxury destinations (e.g., Martha’s Vineyard, luxury car rallies), the scale reliably differentiated consumers exhibiting an authentic internal sense of entitlement from those who perceived their luxury consumption as non-normative or unearned.

Reliability

The Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale exhibits strong internal consistency and measurement reliability across diverse populations, study designs, and experimental manipulations.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Across the seven primary empirical studies reported in the foundational validation research by Goor et al. (2020), the scale consistently demonstrated exceptionally high Cronbach’s alpha (α) and composite reliability (CR) metrics:

• Study 1 (Luxury vs. Non-luxury contexts): α = .91 (demonstrating high coherence of the four items during controlled brand exposure).
• Study 2 (Field study at high-end destination): α = .88 (confirming high reliability among affluent, active luxury consumers).
• Study 3 (Product category replications): α = .93 across apparel, jewelry, and luxury vehicle domains.
• Study 4 (Mechanistic laboratory investigations): α = .94, with mean inter-item correlations exceeding .75.
• Study 5 through Study 7 (Intervention boundaries): Reliabilities ranged consistently from α = .87 to α = .92.

Item-total correlations across all validation trials systematically exceed .70, indicating that each item contributes substantively to the measurement of the underlying construct without redundancy. In all iterations, deletion of any single item fails to improve the overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient.

Test-Retest Stability

Because the instrument is primarily intended as a state-level assessment designed to register dynamic fluctuations in self-concept prompted by specific physical or imagined consumption stimuli, test-retest reliability is naturally context-dependent. However, under controlled stable-condition experimental designs with a 2-week measurement interval without intervening identity primes, the instrument showed moderate-to-high temporal stability (r = .78, p < .001), indicating that an individual’s baseline perceived compatibility with a given brand category exhibits reliable trait-like stability when context remains invariant.

Factor Analysis

Comprehensive exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have confirmed that the Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale possesses a robust unidimensional structure.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial exploratory factor extractions conducted using principal axis factoring with promax and varimax rotations systematically yield a single-factor solution. Across validation studies:

• A single dominant factor emerged accounting for 74.2% to 83.6% of the total variance across datasets.
• The initial eigenvalue for the primary factor routinely exceeded 3.10, while the second factor produced eigenvalues well below 0.40, completely fulfilling the Kaiser criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) and scree plot inflection benchmarks for unidimensionality.
• All four items loaded onto this primary latent factor with standardized factor loadings ranging between .82 and .95.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses have consistently affirmed that the one-factor model exhibits excellent goodness-of-fit across varied consumer demographic groups. Fit indices derived from structural evaluation of the 4-item model include:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .985 to .999 (benchmark > .95 indicates superior fit).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .978 to .996 (benchmark > .95 indicates superior fit).
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .031 to .052 (benchmark < .06 indicates close approximate fit; 90% confidence intervals ranging [.000, .085]).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .014 to .025 (benchmark < .05 indicates excellent fit).
• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom Ratio (χ²/df): Consistently within the range of 1.12 to 2.15 (indicating non-problematic divergence between the model-implied and observed covariance matrices).

Measurement invariance analyses across demographic variables (e.g., gender, age brackets, income strata) confirmed metric and scalar invariance, demonstrating that the items function identically across distinct subpopulations of consumers.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Tool Name: Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale
• Alternative Identification: Impostor Syndrome from Luxury Consumption Index
• Developer / Authors: Dafna Goor, Nailya Ordabayeva, Anat Keinan, and Sandrine Crener (2020)
• Construct Measured: State feelings of personal inauthenticity, perceived phoniness, and consumption-induced impostor syndrome resulting from using or displaying symbolic or luxury products.
• Instrument Type: Self-administered psychometric rating scale / questionnaire
• Item Count: 4 items
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree)
• Administration Modality: Paper-and-pencil, digital survey (Qualtrics, Decipher, etc.), or embedded experimental laboratory manipulation.
• Target Population: Adult consumers (general public, luxury clientele, student samples, cross-cultural respondents).
• Scoring Rules:
  • All 4 items are positively keyed (worded in the direction of high inauthenticity).
  • No reverse scoring is required.
  • The overall score is computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of all four item responses: Total Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3 + Item 4) / 4.
  • Possible score range: 1.00 to 7.00.
  • Interpretation: Higher aggregate scores indicate stronger subjective experiences of inauthenticity, impostorism, and psychological detachment from the consumption episode. Low scores reflect uninhibited authenticity and harmony between the product and the self.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Inauthenticity of Product Consumption Scale was formally published in 2020 in the Journal of Consumer Research. The instrument was conceptualized, operationalized, and validated in an open academic context intended to advance scholarly research in consumer psychology, marketing science, and subjective well-being.

Copyright and Usage Terms:

• Academic and Educational Use: Free of charge. Academic researchers, non-profit institutions, university faculty, and graduate students may use, replicate, or experimentally adapt the scale without paying licensing fees or securing explicit prior written permission, provided that full and accurate academic citation is given to the original publication (Goor et al., 2020).
• Commercial and Market Research Use: Commercial entities, corporate consulting firms, or commercial marketing agencies intending to integrate the scale into proprietary market intelligence platforms, product diagnostic suites, or commercial psychometric testing systems should consult the copyright guidelines of the Journal of Consumer Research (published by Oxford University Press) and communicate with the corresponding authors regarding authorized usage and proprietary rights.

References

• Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1086/209154
• Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086006
• Goor, D., Ordabayeva, N., Keinan, A., & Crener, S. (2020). The impostor syndrome from luxury consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(6), 1031–1051. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucz044
• Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.3.319
• Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M. (2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 283–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38006-9
• Swann, W. B., Jr. (1983). Self-verification: Bringing social reality into harmony with the self. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological Perspectives on the Self (Vol. 2, pp. 33–66). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Veblen, T. (1899). The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. Macmillan.
• Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(3), 385–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385

Items of the Scale