Identification of Items Used in Scales to Measure Hedonism

Abstract

In marketing, hedonism is a consumer behavior issue that is the pleasure and the fun experienced in a consumption experience. Both pleasure and fun are cited by many authors. However, it is unknown if those attributes that appear in explanatory concepts on the subject, are also considered in seeking scales for measuring hedonism. More than that, they do not provide a broad view of what actually is being taken into account to measure the hedonism. Seeking to meet this gap, this paper aims to verify what attributes that have been used in hedonism measurement scales. To get the results, a documentary survey was made on three search bases. 21 representative measurement attributes were found for hedonism, where adventure, escape and a taste for experience are the most cited attributes in hedonism measuring scales. Pleasure and fun, although they have considerable participation in the theoretical conceptualization of hedonism, do not emerge as the most prominent items in the surveyed scales. It was also found that the scale proposed by Sarkar (2011) is that have most of attributes surveyed for hedonism measurement. Finally, it was found that most of the searched scales come from empirical studies that have occurred in the United States and, in smaller volume, in Asian, Oceania and European countries.