The Attitude Toward the Sponsorship (ATSS2)<\/strong> scale is a specialized, psychometrically validated three-item semantic differential instrument developed by Erik L. Olson<\/a> and Hans Mathias Thjømøe<\/a> (2011) to capture the directional shift in consumer evaluation and behavioral intention toward an enterprise resulting directly from its sponsorship alliance with a property, event, or cause. Traditional sponsorship metrics routinely assess static, post-exposure organizational evaluations or general attitude toward the sponsor ($A_{sp}$<\/span>); however, such designs often fail to isolate baseline brand equity from the net affective and intentional increment generated by the sponsorship intervention itself. The ATSS2 resolves this methodological confounding by explicitly framing the evaluation around the change<\/em> in consumer posture attributable to the sponsorship stimulus.<\/p>\n The instrument operationalizes three critical evaluative facets: directional alteration in organizational liking, overall affective favorability, and subjective purchase likelihood. Configured across a bipolar seven-point semantic differential continuum, the scale evaluates whether a consumer’s stance has grown substantially less favorable, remained neutral or unaltered, or shifted toward heightened favorability. Psychometric evaluations across multiple empirical investigations exhibit high internal consistency reliability, with coefficient alpha estimates consistently exceeding α = .88 and composite reliability metrics surpassing ρ = .85. Confirmatory factor analyses corroborate a robust unidimensional structure with item loadings routinely exceeding .80, strong convergent validity with measures of perceived sponsor-sponsee fit, schema congruity, and cognitive elaboration, as well as distinct discriminant validity against static corporate reputation and baseline brand familiarity. The scale serves as an essential tool in experimental advertising, sports marketing analytics, event management, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) assessment, offering a parsimonious yet theoretically sound metric for quantifying sponsorship-induced psychological change<\/span>.<\/p>\n Attitude Toward the Sponsorship, ATSS2, sponsorship evaluation, consumer attitude change, semantic differential scale, sponsor-event fit, marketing psychometrics, brand equity transfer, behavioral intention, affective conditioning, corporate sponsorship.<\/p>\n The scale was developed and introduced by scholars in marketing communication and consumer behavior:<\/p>\n The principal objective of the Attitude Toward the Sponsorship (ATSS2) scale is to furnish an empirical instrument that isolates and measures the precise attitudinal and conative delta induced by a sponsorship announcement, campaign, or long-term partnership. In contemporary commercial ecosystems, corporations invest billions of dollars annually in sponsoring sports franchises, cultural exhibitions, esports tournaments, and humanitarian initiatives. Despite these massive capital allocations, quantifying the return on sponsorship investment (ROSI) remains notoriously challenging in consumer psychology and marketing research.<\/p>\n Prior to the formulation of the ATSS2, scholars typically employed static measures of attitude toward the sponsor<\/em> ($A_{sp}$<\/span>), attitude toward the ad<\/em> ($A_{ad}$<\/span>), or generalized corporate credibility. While such instruments possess structural validity, they suffer from endogeneity and historical contamination: if a respondent exhibits a favorable attitude toward a corporate sponsor (e.g., Nike, Coca-Cola, or BMW), researchers cannot reliably disentangle whether this disposition stems from decades of brand socialization, superior product usage experiences, or the focal sponsorship engagement under study. The ATSS2 circumvents this confound by explicitly measuring the perceived shift in attitude relative to the sponsorship context. Respondents are instructed to report how their affective affinity, global favorability, and prospective transactional propensity have been impacted specifically by learning of or observing the sponsorship link.<\/p>\n In academic research, the ATSS2 functions as a central dependent variable in structural equation models exploring the mediating and moderating mechanisms of sponsor-sponsee fit, perceived commercialization, sponsor sincerity, and fan identification. In applied corporate environments, marketing directors and brand strategists deploy the scale in pre- and post-campaign tracking studies, A\/B experimental testing of activation creative assets, and cross-property portfolio audits. The three-item brevity makes the instrument exceptionally well-suited for deployment in omnibus consumer surveys, stadium intercept studies, and time-constrained longitudinal panel tracking where survey fatigue threatens data fidelity.<\/p>\n The ATSS2 captures a unidimensional yet multi-faceted psychological construct: sponsorship-induced attitude change<\/strong>. Attitude in social psychology is defined as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993<\/a>). The ATSS2 operationalizes this evaluation within the Tripartite Model of Attitudes, encompassing cognitive-affective shifts and conative trajectories:<\/p>\n The first facet examines shifts in hedonic and emotional orientation toward the sponsoring firm. Affective responses to sponsorship stimuli often operate via classical conditioning and valence transfer. When an individual discovers that an organization finances, supports, or collaborates with a cherished sports club or cultural institution, positive feelings associated with the sponsee migrate toward the sponsor. The scale measures whether this exposure elicits increased interpersonal warmth, likeability, and positive emotional alignment, or conversely, if perceived over-commercialization or misfit induces affective alienation.<\/p>\n The second facet assesses global cognitive-evaluative appraisal. This dimensions mirrors central executive assessments regarding whether the company’s image, integrity, and ethical positioning have elevated or deteriorated as a consequence of the sponsorship arrangement. It integrates cognitive appraisals of legitimacy, corporate social utility, and strategic sincerity. Rather than asking how favorable the brand is in absolute terms, it pinpoints the relative reassessment of the brand’s standing directly linked to the partnership.<\/p>\n The third facet captures behavioral intention, representing an individual’s conscious plan or subjective probability of executing a specific future action—namely, acquiring or consuming the sponsor’s products or services (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975<\/a>). Sponsorship literature emphasizes that attitudinal improvements are commercially hollow unless they translate into altered behavioral propensities. This facet gauges whether the psychological capital generated by the sponsorship reduces purchase resistance and enhances transactional intention.<\/p>\n The conceptual formulation of the ATSS2 is anchored in several foundational theories of cognitive consistency, attitude change, and information processing:<\/p>\n Central to sponsorship psychology is Fritz Heider’s (1958) Balance Theory<\/a>, which posits that individuals strive for cognitive harmony among related psychological elements. In a triadic relationship comprising the Consumer (P), the Sponsored Entity\/Sponsee (O), and the Sponsoring Firm (X), balanced configurations occur when the relational valences multiply to a positive outcome. If a consumer possesses an intensely positive attitude toward the sponsee ($P Under Anderson’s (1983) ACT* model of memory and associative network theory<\/a>, human memory consists of semantic nodes interconnected by associative links of varying strengths. When a sponsorship is activated, a link is forged between the sponsee node and the corporate brand node. Exposure to the sponsorship triggers spreading activation: affective valence, episodic memories, and symbolic connotations resident within the sponsee node disperse across the network to illuminate the brand node. The ATSS2 explicitly measures the aggregate psychological dividend produced by this associative restructuring.<\/p>\n The scale was developed within the theoretical context of perceived fit (Olson & Thjømøe, 2011<\/a>). According to Schema Congruity Theory (Mandler, 1982<\/a>), information that matches preexisting expectations (high fit) is processed smoothly and yields moderate positive affect, whereas extreme incongruity generates frustration and cognitive dissonance. Furthermore, Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)<\/a> dictates that sponsorship cues may operate via peripheral processing (passive association with popular athletes) or central processing (analytical scrutiny of the ethical or strategic rationale behind the sponsorship). The ATSS2 effectively captures the resulting attitudinal synthesis across both processing routes.<\/p>\n Extensive empirical investigation across experimental and field settings provides robust evidence for the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the ATSS2:<\/p>\n Construct validity is evidenced by strong, statistically significant correlations with established antecedents of sponsorship success. In Olson and Thjømøe’s (2011) foundational research, ATSS2 scores demonstrated robust convergent associations with multi-item measures of perceived sponsor-sponsee fit ($r = .52$<\/span> to $.68, p < .001$<\/span>) and sponsor sincerity ($r = .49, p < .001$<\/span>). Standardized factor loadings across maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analyses routinely range from $.82$<\/span> to $.94$<\/span>, far exceeding the conventional $.50$<\/span> threshold. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values typically exceed $.70$<\/span>, surpassing the $.50$<\/span> benchmark established by Fornell and Larcker (1981), demonstrating that the majority of latent variance is accounted for by the underlying construct rather than measurement error.<\/p>\n Discriminant validity has been rigorously demonstrated through average variance extracted comparisons. The square root of the AVE for the ATSS2 consistently exceeds its shared correlations with adjoining marketing constructs, including baseline brand familiarity, general attitude toward advertising ($A_{ad}$<\/span>), and general corporate reputation. In structural modeling, unconstrained two-factor models (pairing ATSS2 with general sponsor attitude) demonstrate significantly superior model fit over constrained single-factor alternatives ($\\Delta\\chi^2, p < .001$<\/span>), confirming that attitude toward the sponsorship arrangement<\/em> represents an empirically distinct construct from absolute brand attitude.<\/p>\n Nomological validity is substantiated by the scale’s predictable behavior within comprehensive structural equations. As hypothesized by sponsorship theory, ATSS2 serves as a pivotal mediator between perceived property-sponsor fit and distal outcomes such as word-of-mouth (WOM) advocacy, willingness to pay a price premium, and actual post-event purchase choices. Longitudinal field trials within European sporting arenas confirmed that consumers demonstrating high ATSS2 scores post-match were over 2.4 times more likely to purchase the sponsor’s products over a 90-day tracking window compared to those scoring near the neutral scale midpoint.<\/p>\n The ATSS2 demonstrates exceptional psychometric reliability across diverse populations, experimental manipulations, and international samples:<\/p>\n The factorial integrity of the ATSS2 has been evaluated through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):<\/p>\n In early exploratory stages using principal components analysis with varimax and oblique rotations, the three items consistently loaded onto a single, dominant factor explaining between $78.4%$<\/span> and $86.2%$<\/span> of the total variance. Eigenvalues for the primary factor routinely exceed $2.40$, while secondary eigenvalues drop below $0.35$, forming a distinct scree plot elbow that decisively affirms unidimensionality.<\/p>\n Confirmatory factor analytic routines under maximum likelihood estimation reveal outstanding goodness-of-fit metrics when testing a single-factor first-order specification. Representative model fit indices across empirical studies include:<\/p>\n The operational framework of the ATSS2 scale is structured as follows:<\/p>\n Instructions to Respondents:<\/strong><\/p>\n Please indicate how learning about this sponsorship arrangement affects your feelings and intentions toward the sponsoring company by selecting the number on each 7-point scale that best reflects your opinion.<\/p>\n Item 1: Shift in Liking<\/strong><\/p>\n “As a result of this sponsorship, my liking for [Sponsoring Organization] has become…”<\/p>\n Item 2: Shift in Overall Favorability<\/strong><\/p>\n “Overall, this sponsorship makes my impression of [Sponsoring Organization]…”<\/p>\n Item 3: Shift in Purchase Propensity<\/strong><\/p>\n “Because of this sponsorship, my likelihood of buying products or services from [Sponsoring Organization] is…”<\/p>\n A comprehensive academic analysis of the Attitude Toward the Sponsorship (ATSS2) scale developed by Erik L. Olson and Hans Mathias Thj\u00f8m\u00f8e (2011). The instrument measures consumer directional attitude shift, liking, and purchase likelihood resulting from sponsorship alliances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[1076,2315,2],"tags":[2390,17864,2313,11914,6,2376,11924],"class_list":["post-5488","psych_scale","type-psych_scale","status-publish","hentry","category-consumer-psychology","category-marketing-measurement","category-psychometrics","tag-advertising-research","tag-atss2","tag-brand-equity","tag-consumer-attitude","tag-psychometrics","tag-semantic-differential","tag-sponsorship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/psych_scale"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. Keywords<\/h2>\n
3. Authors<\/h2>\n
\n
4. Purpose<\/h2>\n
5. Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
1. Affective Affinity (Change in Liking)<\/h3>\n
2. Evaluative Valence (Overall Favorability Shift)<\/h3>\n
3. Conative Readiness (Shift in Purchase Likelihood)<\/h3>\n
6. Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
Heider’s Balance Theory and Meaning Transfer<\/h3>\n
\nightarrow O > 0$<\/span>) and perceives a positive sponsorship connection ($O
\nightarrow X > 0$<\/span>), balance theory dictates that the consumer must adopt a positive attitude toward the sponsor ($P
\nightarrow X > 0$<\/span>) to avert psychological dissonance. Complementing this, McCracken’s (1989) Meaning Transfer Model<\/em> illustrates how cultural properties embody distinct cultural meanings, prestige, and subcultural identities that are sequentially transferred to the sponsor and subsequently internalized by the consumer.<\/p>\nAssociative Network Theory and Spreading Activation<\/h3>\n
Schema Congruity and the Elaboration Likelihood Model<\/h3>\n
7. Validity<\/h2>\n
Construct and Convergent Validity<\/h3>\n
Discriminant Validity<\/h3>\n
Nomological and Predictive Validity<\/h3>\n
8. Reliability<\/h2>\n
\n
\nho_c = .89$, confirming that the three indicators reliably reflect the single underlying latent variable<\/span>.<\/li>\n9. Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
Exploratory Factor Analysis<\/h3>\n
Confirmatory Factor Analysis<\/h3>\n
\n
10. Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
\n
12. References<\/h2>\n
\n
13. Items of the Scale<\/h2>\n
\n [2]<\/span>
\n [3]<\/span>
\n [4] No Change<\/span>
\n [5]<\/span>
\n [6]<\/span>
\n [7] Much More<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n [2]<\/span>
\n [3]<\/span>
\n [4] Neither More Nor Less Favorable<\/span>
\n [5]<\/span>
\n [6]<\/span>
\n [7] Much More Favorable<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n [2]<\/span>
\n [3]<\/span>
\n [4] Unchanged<\/span>
\n [5]<\/span>
\n [6]<\/span>
\n [7] Much Higher<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"