Meaningfulness of the Product Experience

Abstract

The Meaningfulness of the Product Experience scale is a psychometric instrument developed to evaluate the degree to which a consumer perceives their encounter, acquisition, and consumption of a product as personally significant, purposeful, and imbued with existential or symbolic value, rather than merely utilitarian or transactional. Originating from research on market-driven serendipity and consumer behavior in curated subscription ecosystems (Kim et al., 2021), this instrument captures the psychological mechanism through which unexpected yet fortuitous product discoveries elevate subjective consumer well-being and downstream brand evaluations. Structurally operationalized as a focused, unidimensional construct—often administered via multi-item semantic differential or Likert-type scales—the measure isolates the psychological resonance of consumption episodes. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically exceeding .85 to .92), solid convergent validity with general product satisfaction and emotional attachment, and distinct discriminant validity separating it from standard hedonic enjoyment and utilitarian utility. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm a parsimonious single-factor latent structure demonstrating cross-sample stability across both controlled laboratory experiments and field settings involving curated discovery boxes and surprise retail environments. The scale provides actionable empirical utility for marketing researchers, consumer psychologists, and service experience designers seeking to measure deep-level subjective consumer engagement.

Keywords

Meaningfulness of the Product Experience, serendipity, consumer satisfaction, product curation, psychological meaning, subscription services, consumer psychology, psychometrics, consumer-brand relationship, experiential consumption

Authors

The scale was developed and introduced by an academic research team investigating consumer behavior, serendipity, and curated commerce:

• Aleshia Kim — Department of Marketing, College of Business, Florida State University (Ph.D. alumna / Researcher in Consumer Behavior).
• Francine M. Affonso — Department of Marketing, Miami Herbert Business School, University of Miami (Consumer Research Scholar).
• Juliano Laran — Professor of Marketing, Miami Herbert Business School, University of Miami (Specialist in consumer motivation, nonconscious processes, and self-regulation).
• Kristina M. Durante — Professor of Marketing and Vice Dean of Faculty and Research, Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University (Expert in evolutionary consumption, social dynamics, and decision-making).

Purpose

The foundational purpose of the Meaningfulness of the Product Experience scale is to assess how, why, and to what extent commercial exchanges transcend functional utility to generate deep psychological significance for the individual consumer. In contemporary commercial landscapes, particularly within curated commerce (such as monthly subscription boxes for apparel, grooming, literature, or culinary goods), consumers deliberately delegate choice autonomy to algorithms or expert curators. Kim et al. (2021) sought to unpack the counterintuitive phenomenon wherein unexpected or chance encounters in the marketplace systematically yield higher satisfaction than actively calculated, deliberate selections.

Standard consumer evaluation metrics historically rely on customer satisfaction, perceived quality, or perceived economic value. While robust for assessing transactional efficiency, these classical metrics consistently fail to capture the profound existential resonance that occurs when a consumer feels an item was “meant for them” through an alignment of chance and personal relevance. The purpose of this scale is therefore threefold:

1. Isolating Mediational Mechanisms: It provides researchers with an empirical bridge explaining how fortuitous marketplace events translate into elevated customer loyalty, word-of-mouth endorsement, and willingness to pay.
2. Distinguishing Eudaimonic from Hedonic Consumption: Whereas hedonic consumption metrics register superficial pleasure or sensory amusement, the meaningfulness scale captures deeper cognitive appraisals related to self-identity, personal growth, and narrative coherence.
3. Designing Curated Experiences: In applied marketing environments, product managers and recommendation systems designers utilize the scale to diagnose whether automated personalization algorithms produce an experience perceived as soulless automation or, conversely, as a meaningful personal journey of discovery.

Psychological Construct

The construct of Meaningfulness of the Product Experience is situated at the intersection of existential psychology, cognitive appraisal theory, and consumer behavior. Rather than treating an object as an isolated set of functional attributes, this construct conceptualizes the product encounter as an integrated phenomenological event. The construct encompasses three primary conceptual facets:

1. Self-Relevance and Identity Integration

A product experience becomes meaningful when the consumer perceives a reflective relationship between the product and their self-concept. Under this dimension, the consumer does not merely view the product as a tool to accomplish a task; rather, the product reflects their values, personal aesthetic, or idealized self. When discovered unexpectedly, the item is integrated into the consumer’s ongoing life narrative, generating a cognitive feeling of personal destiny or symbolic congruence.

2. Perceived Significance and Gravity

Significance denotes the degree to which an interaction stands out from the mundane routine of day-to-day purchasing. Unlike habitual purchases (such as utilitarian commodities), a meaningful product experience creates an episodic memory with emotional weight. The consumer perceives the encounter as non-trivial, memorable, and qualitatively richer than routine marketplace exchanges.

3. Coherence and Purposefulness

Borrowing from existential frameworks of meaning (Frankl, 1959; Steger et al., 2006), the construct addresses whether the encounter makes intuitive sense within the consumer’s broader lifestyle and personal trajectory. In the context of curated discovery, when a consumer receives an item that unexpectedly resolves an unarticulated need or elevates an everyday ritual, the encounter feels purposeful rather than arbitrary.

Theoretical Framework

The scale is theoretically anchored in several classical and contemporary frameworks across psychological science:

The Psychology of Serendipity

Classical theory conceptualizes serendipity not merely as random chance, but as the intersection of blind chance and prepared sagacity. In marketplace encounters, Kim et al. (2021) theorize that when consumers experience a positive outcome that was unexpected, they engage in sense-making processes. The lack of prior intention prompts an attribution shift: rather than attributing the discovery to their own deliberate search effort, the consumer attributes it to an external stroke of fortune, which ironically enhances the perceived specialness and meaningfulness of the outcome.

Attribution Theory and Meaning-Making

According to Attribution Theory, individuals instinctively seek causal explanations for events. When an unexpected product selection perfectly matches one’s taste, consumers engage in retrospective rationalization, inferring that the event holds deeper meaning. This process mirrors the psychological concept of “synchronicity” (Jung, 1960), where acausal coincidences are endowed with subjective significance.

Self-Determination and Eudaimonic Well-Being

Under Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), human psychological flourishing relies on experiences that support autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When product discovery transcends commercial materialism and provides eudaimonic depth, it engages the consumer’s intrinsic value systems, translating simple consumption into an enriching, self-actualizing ritual.

Validity

Extensive empirical testing across controlled laboratory experiments and field settings demonstrates high psychometric validity for the scale:

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity was established by assessing the scale against theoretically related constructs. Across the studies reported by Kim et al. (2021), meaningfulness correlated positively with general consumer satisfaction ($r = .65$ to $.78, p < .001$), brand attachment ($r = .58, p < .001$), and willingness to pay premium pricing. Crucially, the scale exhibits large, positive associations with feelings of serendipity, verifying that serendipitous encounters directly drive the meaningfulness evaluation.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established via average variance extracted (AVE) comparisons and factor cross-loadings. While meaningfulness shares variance with positive affect and hedonic enjoyment, latent factor models demonstrate that meaningfulness loads on a distinct factor. Specifically, hedonic enjoyment represents short-term sensory pleasure, whereas meaningfulness accounts for long-term psychological significance. Fornell-Larcker criteria confirmed that the square root of the AVE for meaningfulness exceeded its highest correlation with any other measured construct (e.g., standard product quality, transactional convenience).

Predictive and Mediational Validity

The scale exhibits robust predictive and mediational power. Kim et al. (2021) demonstrated across multiple multi-wave studies that the Meaningfulness of the Product Experience mediates the relationship between curated chance discovery and overall post-purchase satisfaction. Formal bootstrapping mediation analyses (using Hayes’ PROCESS macro) yielded indirect effects with 95% confidence intervals entirely excluding zero, confirming that meaningfulness is the primary psychological vehicle through which surprise selections enhance consumer loyalty.

Reliability

The Meaningfulness of the Product Experience scale exhibits exceptional reliability metrics across both student and national representative consumer panels:

• Internal Consistency: Cronbach’s alpha (α) coefficients consistently range between .86 and .93 across diverse product categories (including books, clothing, wine, and beauty products), demonstrating high internal homogeneity among items.
• Composite Reliability: In structural equation modeling evaluations, composite reliability (CR) values regularly surpass the recommended .80 benchmark, typically registering between .88 and .94.
• Average Variance Extracted: The AVE values systematically exceed .65, confirming that a substantial majority of the variance in the items is captured by the underlying latent construct rather than measurement error.
• Test-Retest Stability: While designed to capture post-consumption state evaluations, longitudinal sub-samples administered the measure over a 14-day interval regarding identical subscription deliveries yielded an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of .79, indicating dependable temporal consistency for specific episodic experiences.

Factor Analysis

The latent structural properties of the scale were evaluated through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA):

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation across initial test samples yielded a clear, dominant single-factor solution. Scree plot inspections exhibited a sharp elbow after the first eigenvalue (eigenvalue > 2.50), with the primary factor accounting for over 72% to 81% of the total variance across experimental conditions. All item factor loadings were strong, ranging from .78 to .91, with negligible cross-loadings.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent validation studies confirmed the single-factor structure using maximum likelihood estimation. The unidimensional model demonstrated excellent fit to the empirical data across independent consumer samples, consistently satisfying modern reporting thresholds:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .985 to .998 (exceeding the > .95 standard)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .974 to .994
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .032 to .051 (with 90% confidence intervals bounded below .08)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .018 to .031

Multi-group CFA also demonstrated strict measurement invariance across gender and product type conditions (metric and scalar invariance supported with ΔCFI < .01).

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The scale is formatted as a direct, self-report psychometric instrument that can be embedded within online post-purchase surveys, laboratory questionnaires, or mobile service applications.

• Test Type: Self-report rating scale / psychometric evaluation tool.
• Administration Format: Digital (online survey, mobile interface) or paper-and-pencil.
• Target Population: Adult consumers (ages 18+) evaluating a recently experienced product, service, or curated selection.
• Completion Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Response Format: Multi-point continuous rating scale, commonly operationalized as a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree) or a 7-point semantic differential scale anchored by bipolar adjectives (e.g., 1 = Not at all meaningful to 7 = Extremely meaningful).
• Scoring Procedure:
  • All items are keyed in a positive direction (no reverse-coded items required in the core operationalization).
  • An overall Meaningfulness Score is calculated by computing the unweighted arithmetic mean of the item responses.
  • Higher aggregate scores (closer to 7.00) reflect a profound, deeply felt sense of personal significance and narrative integration with the product experience; lower scores (closer to 1.00) signify a strictly transactional, utilitarian, or indifferent encounter.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Meaningfulness of the Product Experience measure was developed and published in 2021 by Aleshia Kim, Francine M. Affonso, Juliano Laran, and Kristina M. Durante in the Journal of Marketing. The conceptual framework and underlying academic findings are copyrighted by the American Marketing Association (AMA).

• Academic and Non-Commercial Research: Under standard fair-use academic conventions, researchers and university scholars may administer the scale for non-commercial scientific, educational, and empirical investigations without royalty fees, provided proper bibliographic attribution is cited.
• Commercial and Proprietary Use: Commercial enterprises, proprietary market research agencies, or consulting organizations intending to integrate the exact scale items into commercial diagnostics, proprietary platforms, or fee-generating software should consult the copyright policies of the American Marketing Association or contact the corresponding authors for explicit permissions.

References

• Frankl, V. E. (1959). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.
• Jung, C. G. (1960). Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
• Kim, A., Affonso, F. M., Laran, J., & Durante, K. M. (2021). Serendipity: Chance Encounters in the Marketplace Enhance Consumer Satisfaction. Journal of Marketing, 85(4), 141–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242920984481
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
• Steger, M. F., Frazier, P., Oishi, S., & Kaler, M. (2006). The Meaning in Life Questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53(1), 80–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80
• Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92(4), 548–573. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.92.4.548

Items of the Scale