The Use Innovativeness Scale<\/strong> (USE-INN), developed by consumer behavior researchers Linda L. Price<\/a> and Nancy M. Ridgway in 1983, represents a foundational psychometric instrument designed to assess individual differences in creative product usage. Distinct from conventional constructs of consumer innovativeness\u2014which historically focused almost exclusively on adoption velocity and the propensity to purchase novel market offerings\u2014use innovativeness captures the behavioral tendencies of consumers to deploy, recombine, adapt, and repurpose existing products in novel ways following their acquisition. The instrument comprises 44 self-report items administered via a 7-point Likert scale<\/a>, organized across five primary dimensions: Creativity\/Curiosity<\/em> (13 items), Risk Preferences<\/em> (9 items), Voluntary Simplicity<\/em> (5 items), Creative Reuse<\/em> (10 items), and Multiple Use Potential<\/em> (7 items).<\/p>\n Psychometric evaluation of the USE-INN establishes robust empirical qualities. The scale yields a mean total score of approximately 199 within an observed empirical range spanning from 112 to 299. Internal consistency estimates across subscales demonstrate acceptable to high reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients reported as: Creativity\/Curiosity (α = .86), Creative Reuse (α = .82), Risk Preferences (α = .70), Voluntary Simplicity (α = .64), and Multiple Use Potential (α = .56). Factor intercorrelations range moderately between .14 and .65, affirming that the five subscales represent related yet empirically separable facets of post-adoption product creativity. Criterion validity was initially documented using handheld calculator usage patterns, where high scorers exhibited statistically significant diversity, complexity, and variety in functional deployment. The USE-INN remains a critical measurement paradigm in consumer psychology, product design, marketing research, sustainability studies, and human-computer interaction<\/span>.<\/p>\n Use Innovativeness, Product Repurposing, Consumer Creativity, Post-Adoption Behavior, Scale Validation, Voluntary Simplicity, Risk Taking, Psychometrics, Product Versatility, Marketing Psychology<\/p>\n The Use Innovativeness Scale was conceptualized, developed, and validated by:<\/p>\n The primary purpose of the Use Innovativeness Scale is to quantify an individual’s disposition toward creative, varied, and non-standard applications of physical and technological products after purchase. For decades preceding Price and Ridgway’s work, mainstream marketing literature operationalized innovativeness almost exclusively through Rogers’ diffusion of innovations<\/a> paradigm, which emphasizes adoption innovativeness<\/em>\u2014the relative earliness or speed with which an individual adopts a newly commercialized good or service. Price and Ridgway demonstrated that this conceptualization introduced severe theoretical limitations, conflating an individual’s financial capability to acquire new items with their underlying cognitive and behavioral creativity in utilizing items.<\/p>\n In response to this theoretical gap, the USE-INN was constructed to isolate use innovativeness<\/em> as an autonomous psychometric construct. It evaluates how consumers transcend functional fixedness, modify products to address unanticipated everyday dilemmas, invent secondary uses for obsolete possessions, and exhibit cognitive curiosity toward technological mechanisms. The scale addresses why two consumers purchasing the exact same functional object (e.g., a programmable electronic device, kitchen appliance, or mechanical tool) display starkly disparate interaction profiles: one adhering strictly to manufacturer-prescribed scripts and instructional manuals, while the other invents improvised routines, alters mechanical settings, and finds alternate utility across disparate household domains.<\/p>\n In contemporary academic research, the instrument serves multiple empirical functions. In consumer research, it explains customer journey dynamics in post-purchase satisfaction, product attachment, and customer-led innovation. In environmental psychology and sustainable consumption research, the scale provides a validated metric to evaluate circular economy behaviors, upcycling, repairability preferences, and zero-waste lifestyles. In industrial product design and human-computer interaction (HCI), researchers utilize the USE-INN to segment target users based on their likelihood to discover unintended software exploits, creative workarounds, or hardware modifications.<\/p>\n The construct of use innovativeness is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional personality trait reflecting an active, exploratory orientation toward the physical and technical environment. It consists of five distinct, interrelated sub-constructs:<\/p>\n This dimension taps into intrinsic cognitive drive, intellectual curiosity, and aesthetic enjoyment derived from understanding how mechanical and electronic systems operate. Individuals high in Creativity\/Curiosity engage in spontaneous tinkering, disassemble objects to investigate internal structures, and derive positive affect from problem-solving through trial and error. This dimension reflects an openness to internal mechanisms, representing low psychological inhibition toward dismantling conventional objects.<\/p>\n The Risk Preferences facet quantifies an individual’s tolerance for ambiguity, error, and potential product damage when operating unfamiliar devices. High scorers display a marked willingness to operate complex machinery, electronics, or software applications without consulting user guides or manufacturer instructions. Conversely, low scorers exhibit cognitive risk aversion, adhering strictly to standardized procedural safeguards out of fear of voiding warranties, causing malfunction, or experiencing personal embarrassment.<\/p>\n Voluntary Simplicity represents a lifestyle orientation emphasizing self-sufficiency, DIY ethos, conservation, and mindful consumption. This dimension measures the deliberate behavioral choice to mend, modify, build, or source secondhand goods rather than defaulting to commercial acquisitions. In the context of use innovativeness, voluntary simplicity acts as a catalyst for product innovation: resource constraints or ecological commitments compel consumers to find creative utility in obsolete or discarded materials.<\/p>\n Creative Reuse reflects the cognitive capacity to overcome functional fixedness<\/a>\u2014the mental block against using an object in an uncustomary manner. High scorers actively repurpose everyday artifacts for secondary applications entirely divergent from their original market intent (e.g., transforming shipping pallets into household furniture, adapting wire coat hangers for electronic antenna stabilization, or converting food containers into organizational modules).<\/p>\n This subscale evaluates the cognitive tendency to evaluate products through the lens of functional versatility. Before or after acquiring an item, high scorers proactively envision diverse scenarios in which the tool can resolve problems outside its primary domain. These individuals assign higher subjective utility to multi-purpose items and derive cognitive satisfaction from maximizing the breadth of functional deployment.<\/p>\n The conceptual infrastructure of the Use Innovativeness Scale integrates principles from cognitive psychology, humanistic personality theories, and consumer behavioral economics. The foundational theoretical pillar is Karl Duncker’s (1945) classic formulation of functional fixedness within Gestalt psychology. Duncker posited that when an artifact is socially and functionally categorized under a specific operational label, cognitive actors encounter severe perceptual resistance in identifying alternative affordances. The USE-INN conceptualizes the use innovative individual as one who routinely disrupts cognitive schemas, actively perceiving latent affordances in artifacts as delineated in J. J. Gibson’s (1979) ecological theory of perception.<\/p>\n A second theoretical underpinning rests upon Berlyne’s (1960) theory of epistemic and exploratory curiosity. Berlyne established that individuals possess variable baseline needs for environmental stimulation, optimal arousal, and novelty seeking. In Price and Ridgway’s framework, the consumer acts as an active explorer within their own material ecology. Products are not static utility-maximizing bundles; they represent interactive stimuli capable of generating perceptual challenge, sensory exploration, and cognitive mastery.<\/p>\n Finally, the scale draws from the theoretical differentiation between innovativeness as a generalized personality trait<\/em> versus innovativeness as a domain-specific manifestation<\/em> (Midgley & Dowling, 1978; Hirschman, 1980). Hirschman specifically articulated the construct of “consumer creativity,” arguing that problem-solving consumption behaviors require cognitive restructuring. Price and Ridgway expanded Hirschman’s ideas into operational psychometrics, establishing that while early adoption is frequently constrained by socioeconomic status, liquidity, and advertising exposure, use innovativeness reflects innate cognitive adaptability, problem-solving persistence, and environmental agency.<\/p>\n Extensive empirical testing has substantiated the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the USE-INN:<\/p>\n The psychometric reliability of the USE-INN has been evaluated across multiple consumer studies, primarily focusing on internal consistency via Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (α):<\/p>\n The total scale score displays high composite reliability across multiple independent evaluations, with total instrument Cronbach’s alpha values consistently reported between .84 and .89. Test-retest reliability across four-to-six-week intervals has demonstrated strong temporal stability (r<\/em> > .78), establishing that the USE-INN captures enduring trait-like orientations rather than transient affective states<\/span>.<\/p>\n During the initial scale construction phase, Price and Ridgway generated an expansive pool of candidate items derived from theoretical consumer literature, depth interviews, and cognitive testing. The initial item pool was subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) utilizing principal components extraction followed by Varimax orthogonal rotation<\/a> and oblique (Promax) rotation paradigms to examine underlying latent dimensions.<\/p>\n The EFA yielded an interpretable five-factor solution based on latent eigenvalues exceeding unity (the Kaiser-Guttman criterion) and visual inspection of the scree plot. Items loading below .40 on their primary factor or exhibiting problematic cross-loadings greater than .30 on secondary factors were systematically eliminated, resulting in the final 44-item battery. The five derived factors accounted for significant portions of the shared variance among the items.<\/p>\n Factor intercorrelations revealed moderate structural interdependence, ranging from r<\/em> = .14 to r<\/em> = .65, justifying both individual subscale analysis and the computation of an omnibus use innovativeness composite index. Subsequent confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) conducted in contemporary research settings have confirmed the five-factor model fit, with standard structural indices demonstrating adequate fit (e.g., Comparative Fit Index [CFI] > .90, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] ≤ .06) when residual covariances between conceptually adjacent items within subscales are appropriately specified<\/span>.<\/p>\n The operational specifications of the Use Innovativeness Scale are structured as follows:<\/p>\n The Use Innovativeness Scale was published in 1983<\/strong> in the peer-reviewed conference proceedings Advances in Consumer Research<\/em> (Volume 10), published by the Association for Consumer Research (ACR). As an academic publication within the ACR proceedings, the conceptual model, psychometric properties, and scale items were published for scholarly scientific advancement.<\/p>\n Academic researchers and non-profit educational investigators may utilize the scale for scholarly research without licensing fees, provided that appropriate bibliographic attribution is accorded to the original authors (Price & Ridgway, 1983). Commercial organizations, proprietary market research agencies, and enterprise consulting firms seeking to integrate the scale into proprietary commercial software or fee-generating assessment batteries should consult institutional copyright policies or contact the primary authors directly regarding intellectual property clearances.<\/p>\n2. Keywords<\/h2>\n
3. Authors<\/h2>\n
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4. Purpose<\/h2>\n
5. Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
Creativity\/Curiosity (13 items)<\/h3>\n
Risk Preferences (9 items)<\/h3>\n
Voluntary Simplicity (5 items)<\/h3>\n
Creative Reuse (10 items)<\/h3>\n
Multiple Use Potential (7 items)<\/h3>\n
6. Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
7. Validity<\/h2>\n
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8. Reliability<\/h2>\n
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9. Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
10. Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
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11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
12. References<\/h2>\n
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13. Items of the Scale<\/h2>\n