Developing countries may have a relatively higher level of conspicuous consumption, because of extreme inequalities in income. The relatively frequent appearance of such a behavior in the Balkans in general, seems to confirm this idea. Thus, it sounds particularly fascinating to investigate reasons, factors and other aspects concerning this behavior. This may help to better understand the coexistence of the impossibility to fulfill sometimes even the basic needs and the insistence to buy extremely expensive products simply to show off, on the other side.

Pollet & Thienpont manage to show that conspicuous consumption has its roots in sexual selection, following Darwin’s arguments and contrasting Veblen who stated that natural selection is unable to explain the persistence of “wasteful” behavior. They trace the origins of the phenomenon back to the theory of sexual selection, more particularly to the handicap principle.

Conspicuous consumption is essentially an instrument of signaling. Individuals use it to signal sexual or social relevant characteristics to others. It can also be a matter of self fulfillment or just serve as a means to fill social voids. It is because of this, that marginal groups spend relatively more on conspicuous consumption.  Higher levels of education should generally bring higher levels of such consumption, due to a higher access to financial resource and social relevant characteristics

http://www.ijser.org/researchpaper%5CConspicuous-Consumption-of-Luxury-Goods-Literature-Review.pdf

thanks for this - first - answer! i agree, i also treat conspicuous consumption from an evolutionary point of view (costly signalling, handicap principle, sexual selection). i was just wondering if there are other scales (for use in questionnaires) than those two i already found.

thanks for the paper.

Hi Manfred, Depending on your purpose and extent of usage, there is a short and relatively simple scale proposed by Souiden et al (2011), although again, it is not very extensive. Podoshen et al (2011) employed another relatively short scale adopted (with modifications) from a previous study. I must add that I haven't yet used these scales myself, so cannot attest to their validity. I often find myself in a similar struggle when searching for validated surveys; my area concerns a more general view of compensatory consumption, but even so, scales are scarce.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

Bernadett

thank you very much! I'll have a look on these.

You might take a look at "the Handbook of Marketing Scales."  Now, I just looked and did not see a scale related to conspicuous consumption per se, but you may find other scales which may inspire items for a new scale.

yes John, i've 4 Marketing scales handbooks in my Office - unfortunately there are no such scales in there, as you said.

Hi !

one doctoral student  (M.H. Moawa, 2007) used Estman et al scale, studying conspicuous consumption in Lebanon, and the effect of religion. The scale was used in the english version and worked fine.

May be you can locate her work through internet... I have only the paper version of the thesis.

Hope this helps

Best

thanks!

The only scale I am familiar with is the one I developed with Eastman and Flynn.

While it is not a validated through the standard method, have you seen O'Cass and Frost (2004) and Truong et al. (2008). It has been used in numerous other studies. 

O’Cass, A., & Frost, H. (2004). Exploring consumer status and conspicuous consumption. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4(1), 25–39.

Truong, Y., Simmons, G., McColl, R. and Kitchen, P.J. (2008), “Status and conspicuousness – are they related? Strategic marketing implications for luxury brands”, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 189-203.

thank you! i already had the 2004 paper but not the 2008 paper.

You can find a developed scale for measuring conspicuous consumption in this paper (Appendix 3):

Marcoux et al (1997), "The Attitudes Underlying Preferences of Young Urban Educated Polish Consumers Towards Products Made in Western Countries", Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 9 (4), 5-29.

But i am not familiar with the scale that developed by Chaudhuri et al. 2011. Could you please give me the title of paper?

The Chaudhuri et al. paper reference is as follows:

Conspicuous consumption orientation: Conceptualisation, scale development and validation

H Roy Chaudhuri, S Mazumdar, A Ghoshal

Journal of Consumer Behaviour 10 (4), 216-224

The scale seems somewhat culturally specific, would be interesting to explore / adapt to different societal settings..

Thank you Bernadett. I thought that scale developed by Prof. Arjun Chaudhuri (Author of "Emotion and Reason in Consumer Behavior").