The Attitude Toward Sharing the Information (ATSI)<\/strong> scale is a concise, psychometrically validated three-item self-report instrument developed to evaluate an individual's evaluative disposition, willingness, and behavioral intention to disseminate specific informational content across interpersonal and digital communication channels. Originally operationalized by Maria Ek Styvén, Marcello Mariani, and Christina Strandberg (2020) in their foundational investigation of online place branding and digital media literacies published in the Journal of Business Research<\/em>, the instrument captures both direct interpersonal transmission (such as interpersonal recommendation and direct peer sharing) and broadcast-oriented electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) via social media platforms. Configured around a 7-point Likert scale<\/a> ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”), the scale uses an adaptable stimulus placeholder that allows researchers to contextualize the item content for diverse informational targets, ranging from geographic destination branding and municipal public relations to general organizational communications, healthcare guidelines, and consumer product narratives. Psychometric validation studies demonstrate that the ATSI exhibits exceptional internal consistency reliability (with Cronbach's alpha<\/a> coefficients and composite reliability estimates routinely exceeding .85), robust unidimensional structural validity verified via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA<\/a>), and pronounced convergent and discriminant validity against related psychological constructs, including digital media skills, place attachment, and general social media engagement.<\/p>\n Attitude Toward Sharing the Information, ATSI, electronic word-of-mouth, eWOM, information sharing behavior, digital media skills, social media marketing, place branding, consumer advocacy, psychometrics<\/p>\n The scale was developed and psychometrically validated by a collaborative team of scholars in marketing, digital business, and consumer psychology:<\/p>\n The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward Sharing the Information (ATSI) scale is to provide researchers, organizational communicators, and social psychologists with a reliable, parsimonious metric for assessing an individual's proactive orientation toward disseminating specific target information. In contemporary information ecosystems, consumer-to-consumer and citizen-to-citizen information transmission plays an influential role in shaping public perception, organizational reputation, and destination equity. While classic consumer research frequently differentiated between private interpersonal recommendations (traditional word-of-mouth) and public broadcast dissemination (such as online reviews and public social media posts), modern digital convergence demands measurement tools capable of bridging these modalities. The ATSI was designed specifically to address this convergence by evaluating a respondent's behavioral intention across both interpersonal peer-sharing channels and public web-based platforms.<\/p>\n From an applied perspective, the ATSI serves critical diagnostic and predictive functions across multiple research streams:<\/p>\n The construct captured by the ATSI represents an integration of an individual's cognitive appraisal, affective endorsement, and conative readiness to distribute information. Rooted in socio-cognitive psychology, the construct reflects the micro-level decision-making process through which a message recipient transitions into an active message transmitter. Rather than assessing habitual social media usage or generic extraversion, the ATSI isolates the specific, target-directed intention to share designated informational stimuli.<\/p>\n This psychological construct comprises three interrelated communicative mechanisms:<\/p>\n By integrating these components into a single unidimensional index, the ATSI measures the overall transmission potential of a given piece of information, recognizing that modern communication pathways exist on a continuum between private dialogue and broadcast interaction.<\/p>\n The architectural foundation of the ATSI draws from several classical and contemporary theoretical paradigms across social psychology and communication sciences:<\/p>\n Formulated by Icek Ajzen<\/a> and Martin Fishbein, the Theory of Reasoned Action<\/a> posits that behavioral intention is the most proximal cognitive antecedent of actual behavior. Behavioral intention itself is governed by an individual's attitude toward the target act, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Within this paradigm, the ATSI measures behavioral intention directed toward a specific communicative action. The scale operationalizes the conative outcome resulting from cognitive evaluation of the source content, affective resonance with the subject matter, and perceived self-efficacy in operating digital transmission channels.<\/p>\n Rooted in the sociology of George Homans and Peter Blau, Social Exchange Theory<\/a> suggests human interactions are transactional exchanges based on cost-benefit analyses. When individuals share valuable, entertaining, or culturally meaningful information, they enhance their bridging and bonding social capital<\/a>. The ATSI measures the intention that emerges when the anticipated social rewards (e.g., prestige, perceived helpfulness, reciprocity, community validation) outweigh the perceived cognitive and social costs of communication.<\/p>\n From a media communications perspective, Uses and Gratifications Theory<\/a> explains why consumers actively select, process, and redistribute specific media content to satisfy psychological needs. The ATSI reflects the activation of these needs—particularly informational gratification, personal identity expression, social integration, and empowerment—prompting the individual to transition from passive media consumer to active content distributor.<\/p>\n Empirical evaluations of the ATSI across varied academic studies demonstrate robust psychometric validity across several standard measurement dimensions:<\/p>\n Convergent validity evaluates whether scale items that theoretically reflect the construct correlate strongly with one another. In the psychometric evaluation conducted by Styvén, Mariani, and Strandberg (2020), the scale items demonstrated standardized factor loadings exceeding .85, comfortably surpassing the conventional psychometric retention benchmark of .707. Furthermore, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE)<\/a> routinely exceeds .75, substantially higher than the .50 cutoff recommended by Fornell and Larcker (1981). This confirms that the construct explains far more variance in its observed indicators than measurement error does.<\/p>\n Discriminant validity verifies that the ATSI remains empirically distinct from related psychological concepts. Based on the Fornell-Larcker criterion<\/a>, the square root of the AVE for the ATSI exceeds its highest inter-construct correlation with adjoining latent variables—such as digital media skills, general place satisfaction, destination attachment, and frequency of online platform usage. Moreover, rigorous assessments using the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT<\/a>) ratio of correlations yielded values well below the conservative .85 threshold, establishing that the ATSI captures a distinct behavioral construct rather than redundant variance from general online engagement.<\/p>\n Nomological validity is established by the scale's performance within theoretical structural equation models (SEM<\/a>). Styvén et al. (2020) demonstrated that individuals exhibiting higher operational and informational digital media skills reported significantly stronger attitudes toward sharing place branding content. Furthermore, longitudinal and experimental extensions of the instrument show that elevated scores on the ATSI reliably predict actual objective digital sharing behaviors, including retweets, social media post creation, and verbal referral patterns.<\/p>\n The ATSI demonstrates high internal consistency across multiple independent samples and cultural contexts. The primary reliability parameters reported in psychometric literature include:<\/p>\n Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm the clean unidimensional structure of the ATSI scale:<\/p>\n When evaluated within structural equation modeling environments (e.g., AMOS, LISREL, Mplus, R Confirmatory factor analytic investigations report the following typical standardized factor loadings across diverse empirical applications:<\/p>\n These loadings confirm that each item functions as a strong observable indicator of the underlying latent construct.<\/p>\n The operational specifications of the scale are structured as follows:<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Sharing the Information scale was formally published in 2020<\/strong> in the Journal of Business Research<\/em>. Under international fair use and academic research standards, the instrument is accessible without licensing fees for non-commercial scientific, academic, and educational research purposes. Investigators utilizing the scale in published academic work are expected to cite the original validation article (Styvén et al., 2020). For proprietary, commercial, or consulting applications, users should review the licensing permissions associated with Elsevier and the copyright holders.<\/p>\n Response Scale:<\/strong> 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)<\/span><\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Sharing the Information (ATSI) scale is a 3-item psychometric measure designed to evaluate a consumer’s willingness and intention to share information across interpersonal and online channels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[2613,2757,7139,2],"tags":[15792,2724,18686,3349,6,175,2399],"class_list":["post-5799","psych_scale","type-psych_scale","status-publish","hentry","category-communication-studies","category-consumer-behavior","category-marketing-psychology","category-psychometrics","tag-atsi","tag-ewom","tag-information-sharing","tag-place-branding","tag-psychometrics","tag-social-media","tag-word-of-mouth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5799","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=5799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Keywords<\/h2>\n
Authors<\/h2>\n
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Purpose<\/h2>\n
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Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
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Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
1. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Reasoned Action (TRA)<\/h3>\n
2. Social Exchange Theory and Social Capital<\/h3>\n
3. Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT)<\/h3>\n
Validity<\/h2>\n
Construct and Convergent Validity<\/h3>\n
Discriminant Validity<\/h3>\n
Predictive and Nomological Validity<\/h3>\n
Reliability<\/h2>\n
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Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Indices<\/h3>\n
lavaan<\/code>), the three-item unidimensional measurement model demonstrates satisfactory fit indices when embedded within broader nomological networks:<\/p>\n\n
Standardized Factor Loadings<\/h3>\n
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Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
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[information about the destination\/place]<\/code>) are replaced by the investigator to match the specific subject matter under evaluation (e.g., “information about the health advisory”, “information regarding this brand”, “information regarding the municipality”).<\/li>\n\n
Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
References<\/h2>\n
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Items of the Scale<\/h2>\n
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