The Electronic Nicotine Vaping Outcomes Scale (ENVO)<\/strong> is a psychometrically validated, 32-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess cognitive outcome expectancies associated with the use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)<\/a> among emerging adults. Originally developed and standardized by Harrell et al. (2023)<\/a>, the ENVO addresses critical psychometric and conceptual limitations observed in legacy tobacco instruments, which were largely adapted from combustible cigarette paradigms and failed to capture modern technological, sensory, and sociocultural nuances unique to contemporary vaping devices. Beginning with an initial reservoir of 150 candidate items derived from empirical literature reviews and qualitative focus groups with diverse collegiate populations, the item pool was iteratively refined through a formal Delphi expert consensus<\/a> procedure to 51 items, and subsequently distilled via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses coupled with Item Response Theory (IRT)<\/a> modeling.<\/p>\n The resulting instrument measures five robust, latent dimensions of vaping expectancies: Positive Reinforcement<\/em> (8 items), Negative Consequences<\/em> (10 items), Negative Affect Reduction<\/em> (5 items), Weight Control<\/em> (5 items), and Addiction<\/em> (4 items). Evaluated across a racially, ethnically, and institutionally diverse sample of young adults recruited from community colleges, four-year universities, and a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the United States, the ENVO demonstrates exceptional psychometric properties. Internal consistency reliability across subscales is exemplary, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients<\/a> ranging from .87 to .95. Confirmatory factor analyses established excellent structural fit (CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.05), accompanied by rigorous demonstration of configural, metric, and scalar measurement invariance across biological sex, racial identities, and smoking\/vaping status. Furthermore, the scale demonstrates pronounced convergent, divergent, and incremental validity, predicting prospective vaping susceptibility and lifetime usage trajectories beyond traditional demographic and environmental covariates<\/span>.<\/p>\n Electronic Nicotine Vaping Outcomes Scale, ENVO, Outcome Expectancies, Electronic Cigarettes, ENDS, Positive Reinforcement, Negative Consequences, Negative Affect Reduction, Weight Control, Addiction Expectancies, Psychometrics, Item Response Theory, Young Adults, Substance Use Assessment<\/p>\n The ENVO scale was constructed, psychometrically validated, and published through a multi-institutional collaboration comprising behavioral scientists, psychometricians, and public health epidemiologists:<\/p>\n The primary clinical and epidemiological objective of the Electronic Nicotine Vaping Outcomes Scale (ENVO) is to provide an empirically grounded, psychometrically sound, and culturally unbiased measurement instrument to evaluate cognitive outcome expectancies regarding electronic nicotine delivery systems among young adults aged 18 to 29 years. The transition into emerging adulthood represents a critical developmental epoch marked by heightened vulnerability to substance initiation, experimentation, and escalation into physiological dependence. Over the past decade, technological transformations in ENDS—such as high-concentration nicotine salt formulations, pod-based and disposable delivery systems, customizable voltages, and extensive aromatic flavor profiles—have fundamentally decoupled vaping from traditional combustible tobacco smoking.<\/p>\n Prior to the construction of the ENVO, behavioral researchers and clinical trialists relied predominantly on adapted versions of combustible cigarette measures, such as the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ)<\/a> and its short forms (SCQ-A). While historically invaluable, these adapted legacy instruments suffered from pronounced construct underrepresentation. They failed to encompass critical behavioral and sensory phenomena idiosyncratic to ENDS, including: the sensory experience of varied characterizing flavors (e.g., fruit, menthol, dessert confectionery); the physical sensations associated with modern aerosol inhalation (“throat hit”); recreational performance aspects such as performing “cloud tricks”; novel social perceptions (e.g., looking ridiculous vs. socially appealing); and specific fears regarding unknown long-term pulmonary, cardiovascular, and toxicological risks unique to aerosolized constituents.<\/p>\n From an applied perspective, the ENVO fills a critical void across preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic domains:<\/p>\n The underlying construct assessed by the ENVO is electronic nicotine vaping outcome expectancies<\/strong>. In cognitive and behavioral psychology, an outcome expectancy<\/a> represents an anticipatory cognitive schema regarding the probability and qualitative nature of consequences that will ensue as a direct result of engaging in a specific behavioral sequence. Rather than capturing simple factual knowledge, outcome expectancies capture subjective, contingent beliefs (“If I vape, then X will occur”) that serve as primary proximate drivers of behavioral motivation, decision-making, and behavioral reinforcement. The ENVO operationalizes this construct as a multidimensional architecture comprising five distinct factors:<\/p>\n This subscale comprises 8 items that assess the anticipation of direct appetitive, sensory, and recreational rewards derived from the pharmacological and tactile act of vaping. Unlike legacy smoking scales that focused primarily on generic satisfaction or taste, the ENVO PR dimension captures the multifaceted sensory-motor appeal of modern devices. This includes palatable flavor appreciation (e.g., sweetness, variety of fruit formulations), tactile oral sensations (aerosol temperature, “throat hit”, sensation on lips and tongue), recreational play (performing vapor cloud tricks), and the acute pharmacological rush or central nervous system “buzz” elicited by rapid pulmonary absorption of nicotine salts.<\/p>\n Encompassing 10 items, the Negative Consequences factor measures subjective beliefs regarding the adverse physical, somatic, health-related, and interpersonal outcomes resulting from ENDS use. The dimension reflects contemporary public awareness and epistemic uncertainty regarding vaping safety. It gauges expectancies of chronic organ-specific pathology (e.g., cardiovascular disease, pulmonary malignancy), somatic vulnerability (“The more I vape, the more I risk my health”), apprehension regarding undefined long-term toxicological damage (“serious health problems that are not yet known”), as well as social-evaluative detriments, such as looking foolish or offending bystanders and parents (“People get upset if you vape around their children”).<\/p>\n Comprising 5 items, this subscale captures the expectation of negative reinforcement—specifically, the belief that aerosol inhalation will alleviate, attenuate, or soothe aversive emotional states. Items quantify anticipated relief across distinct negative emotional modalities, including generalized anxiety, acute worry, psychological tension, anger, irritability, and depressive symptomatology. Elevated scores reflect a robust cognitive reliance on vaping as an external coping and emotion-regulation mechanism.<\/p>\n This 5-item dimension assesses beliefs that electronic nicotine vaping functions as an efficacious instrument for metabolic modulation, appetite suppression, and dietary restraint. Grounded in behavioral pharmacology, nicotine exhibits known anorectic properties through central hypothalamic signaling. The ENVO WC items explicitly measure expectancies that vaping curbs subjective appetite, controls body weight, prevents postprandial overeating, and enables users to actively skip or replace dietary intake with aerosol inhalation.<\/p>\n Consisting of 4 items, the Addiction dimension evaluates subjective expectancies of neurobiological and psychological dependence. It measures the anticipatory awareness that cessation or prolonged involuntary deprivation from vaping will trigger distressing somatic withdrawal, cognitive disruptions, and intolerable affective dysregulation. Items explicitly evaluate expected loss of subjective equilibrium (“I don’t feel like myself if I go too long without vaping”), acute concentration deficits upon cessation, generalized malaise, and the escalation of unmanageable, intrusive cravings following several hours of abstinence.<\/p>\n The conceptual architecture of the ENVO scale is anchored at the convergence of Social Cognitive Theory<\/strong>, Cognitive Expectancy Models of Substance Use<\/strong>, and the Behavioral Pharmacology of Nicotine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Formulated by Albert Bandura (1986)<\/a>, Social Cognitive Theory posits that human behavioral adaptation is governed by triadic reciprocal causation<\/em>, wherein cognitive personal factors, environmental events, and behavioral patterns continuously interact. Within this paradigm, outcome expectancies function as foundational cognitive determinants of agency. Individuals do not merely respond to external environmental stimuli; rather, they process, symbolize, and evaluate anticipated outcomes of alternative actions. According to Bandura, when anticipated positive consequences outweigh anticipated negative consequences, the subjective valuation of the behavior rises, drastically escalating initiation likelihood, behavioral frequency, and resistance to extinction.<\/p>\n In the domain of addiction science, the cognitive expectancy model was pioneered through the landmark empirical work of Mark Goldman, Thomas Brandon, and colleagues (e.g., Brandon & Baker, 1991; Goldman et al., 1987). Expectancy theory contends that repeated biological exposure to a substance, paired with social observation, vicarious learning, and cultural marketing, establishes deeply encoded semantic memory networks. These associative networks store mental representations regarding the contingent effects of substance administration.<\/p>\n Once formed, these outcome expectancies operate as cognitive filters that mediate the pathway between distal risk factors (e.g., genetic vulnerability, sensation seeking, peer tobacco use) and proximal behavioral execution (initiation, titration, relapse). The ENVO operationalizes this cognitive model by bifurcating outcomes along primary operant conditioning pathways:<\/p>\n A crucial theoretical premise driving the creation of the ENVO was the recognition that modern ENDS are pharmacologically and socially disparate from 20th-century combustible cigarettes. The introduction of benzoic acid and other organic acid nicotine formulations reduced aerosol pH, enabling high concentrations of unprotonated nicotine to be inhaled with minimal upper airway harshness. This chemical optimization facilitates rapid brain arterial absorption rates that match or exceed combustible cigarettes, producing sharp subjective “rushes” while simultaneously accommodating complex flavor chemistry. The ENVO explicitly incorporates these unique pharmacological kinetics and sensory features into its underlying theoretical construct.<\/p>\n The psychometric validation of the ENVO by Harrell et al. (2023)<\/a> entailed comprehensive assessments of convergent, divergent, incremental, and structural validity across culturally diverse collegiate populations.<\/p>\n Convergent and divergent validity was established through correlation analyses examining relationships between the five ENVO subscales and established behavioral benchmarks: vaping susceptibility<\/em> (among non-users) and lifetime vaping history<\/em> (across the full sample).<\/p>\n To confirm that the ENVO accounts for unique behavioral variance beyond standard epidemiological risk indicators, hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted. After rigorously entering and controlling for sociodemographic factors (age, biological sex, race\/ethnicity), direct commercial exposure to vaping marketing, and social influence vectors (peer and familial vaping prevalence), the five ENVO factor scores accounted for significant incremental variance in lifetime vaping frequency. Positive Reinforcement consistently emerged as the most potent statistical driver of usage behaviors, confirming that cognitive outcome schemas contribute unique explanatory power over and above environmental and social peer modeling.<\/p>\n To evaluate the latent measurement properties of the individual items, Harrell et al. fitted Samejima’s Graded Response Model (GRM)<\/a> within an IRT framework:<\/p>\n The ENVO demonstrates outstanding reliability across all five subscales, establishing high measurement precision across diverse academic environments and demographic cohorts.<\/p>\n Internal consistency estimates were computed using Cronbach’s alpha ($\u0007lpha$<\/span>) within both calibration and validation split-half samples. Every subscale comfortably exceeded the conventional psychometric threshold of $\u0007lpha ge .80$<\/span> for group research and $\u0007lpha ge .90$<\/span> for clinical diagnostics:<\/p>\n Item Information Curves (IIC) and Total Test Information (TIF) functions derived from the IRT Graded Response Models revealed that the ENVO provides maximal measurement precision (minimal standard errors of measurement, $SEM$<\/span>) within the standard score range of $\theta = -1.0$ to $\theta = +2.5$. This indicates that the scale is acutely calibrated for detecting subtle shifts in cognitive expectancies among individuals progressing from non-susceptible experimental contemplation to entrenched chemical dependence<\/span>.<\/p>\n The structural dimensionality of the ENVO was evaluated using a rigorous split-half cross-validation methodology, combining exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and multigroup measurement invariance testing.<\/p>\n The initial 51-item pool derived from Delphi panel refinement was administered to an exploratory development subsample ($n = 753$<\/span>). Multiple empirical criteria converged to identify the latent dimensionality:<\/p>\n All empirical extraction tests converged on a definitive 5-factor solution<\/strong>. During oblique rotation (promax\/geomin), item reduction criteria were strictly enforced: items displaying cross-loadings greater than .20 on secondary factors were eliminated (5 items removed), and items exhibiting semantic redundancy alongside lower primary loadings were discarded (14 items removed). The final 32-item architecture emerged with remarkably robust primary factor loadings spanning from $lambda = .60$<\/span> to $lambda = 1.00$<\/span>, with negligible off-target cross-loadings.<\/p>\n The derived 5-factor model was subsequently cross-validated on an independent validation subsample ($n = 754$<\/span>) using robust diagonally weighted least squares (WLSMV) estimation to account for ordinal categorical distributions. The 5-factor correlated model displayed exemplary goodness-of-fit indices:<\/p>\n A distinctive scientific strength of the ENVO validation is its extensive evaluation of multigroup measurement invariance<\/a> across diverse demographic and behavioral populations. Through sequential nested model comparisons (evaluating $Delta\text{CFI} le .010$<\/span> and $Delta\text{RMSEA} le .015$<\/span>), the ENVO demonstrated full configural<\/strong>, metric (weak)<\/strong>, and scalar (strong)<\/strong> invariance across:<\/p>\n Demonstrating scalar invariance is vital: it guarantees that observed differences in ENVO subscale means across biological sexes, racial groups, or smoking categories reflect genuine psychological differences in latent outcome beliefs, rather than differential item functioning (DIF) or psychometric measurement artifact.<\/p>\n Below is the structured technical profile for the administration and scoring of the scale:<\/p>\n The Electronic Nicotine Vaping Outcomes Scale (ENVO) was formally established and published in 2023<\/strong> by Paul T. Harrell and colleagues in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence<\/em>. In accordance with open-science practices and standard academic psychometric dissemination, the instrument is available free of charge for non-commercial, academic, clinical, and scholarly research purposes. Commercial utilization, proprietary software integration, or fee-based clinical platforms require formal licensing permissions from the primary corresponding author and copyright holders. Academic investigators conducting empirical studies are encouraged to cite the foundational publication:<\/p>\n Direct inquiries regarding scale utilization, data sharing, or institutional translations should be directed to the corresponding developer: Dr. Paul T. Harrell<\/strong>, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Community Health & Research, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA, United States (Email: harrelpt@evms.edu<\/em>).<\/p>\n The following scientific literature provides foundational theoretical, methodological, and empirical backing for the ENVO scale:<\/p>\n The Electronic Nicotine Vaping Outcomes Scale (ENVO) is a 32-item psychometrically validated inventory designed by Harrell et al. (2023) to assess outcome expectancies of electronic nicotine vaping across five core dimensions in young adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[2043,2,12791],"tags":[23739,23737,11,13513,35,1150,23738],"class_list":["post-7945","psych_scale","type-psych_scale","status-publish","hentry","category-addiction-assessments","category-psychometrics","category-substance-use-measures","tag-e-cigarettes","tag-envo","tag-item-response-theory","tag-nicotine-dependence","tag-scale-validation","tag-substance-use","tag-vaping-expectancies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/7945","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=7945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/7945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7945"}],"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
1. Positive Reinforcement (PR)<\/h3>\n
2. Negative Consequences (NC)<\/h3>\n
3. Negative Affect Reduction (NAR)<\/h3>\n
4. Weight Control (WC)<\/h3>\n
5. Addiction (AD)<\/h3>\n
Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
Social Cognitive Theory & Triadic Reciprocal Determinism<\/h3>\n
Expectancy Theory of Addictive Behaviors<\/h3>\n
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Technological & Pharmacological Evolution of ENDS<\/h3>\n
Validity<\/h2>\n
Convergent and Divergent Validity<\/h3>\n
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Incremental Validity<\/h3>\n
Item Response Theory (IRT) Characteristics<\/h3>\n
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Reliability<\/h2>\n
Internal Consistency<\/h3>\n
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Standard Error of Measurement and Score Precision<\/h3>\n
Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/h3>\n
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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/h3>\n
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Measurement Invariance<\/h3>\n
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Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
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Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
References<\/h2>\n
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13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)<\/h2>\n