Validity Test Notes

List of Original Items

The items below relate to the following, which are Dittmar’s (2011) “identity-related functions of material goods” (slightly re-written by me for my testers):

Effectiveness	EFF	The thing allows me a sense of control and to show competence.
Emotional Regulation	EMR	The thing is a means to generate, express, or regulating emotions (self-esteem, belongingness, continuity/stability).
Actual Identity	AID	The thing represents who I am right now (my qualities and values, differentiating me from others).
Ideal Identity	IID	The thing represents who I want to be (the qualities, values, and goals to which I aspire).
Personal History	PRH	The thing provides a sense of continuity with my personal history, and how I became the person I am today.
Symbolic Interrelatedness	SIR	The thing represents a link to an individual (a friend, a family member, a colleague).
Social Identity	SID	The thing represents a link to (or membership in) a group or subculture.

SIR was removed since it applies to a single individual and isolating one seemed pointless at this phase.

Four potential measures were devised for each remaining function.

• EFF1: I am confident that I make good decisions about the product.
• EFF2: I have control over the product.
• EFF3: The product lets me demonstrate competence in my profession.
• EFF4: I influence the direction of the product.
• EMR1: I feel happy when I think of the product.
• EMR2: I feel a sense of pride when I think of the product.
• EMR3: My association with the product gives me a feeling of stability.
• EMR4: My association with the product boosts my self-esteem.
• AID1: The product is an important part of who I am right now.
• AID2: My personal values are represented in the product.
• AID3: I see part of myself in the product.
• AID4: When I meet someone new, telling them about the product helps them understand who I am.
• IID1: I have a strong sense of how the product will help me achieve future career goals.
• IID2: I am growing into a better version of me as I work on the product.
• IID3: I want to make sure “future me” is happy with the completed product.
• IID4: I feel the product will influence the future of the whole field.
• PRH1: The product is a natural extension of my professional work history.
• PRH2: The product reminds me of technologies that were important to me in the past.
• PRH3: I keep memorabilia regarding past products in my work space.
• PRH4: A much younger me would be excited to know I was working on the product today.
• SID1: I am glad to belong to the product’s target user group.
• SID2: I feel strong ties with the product’s target user group.
• SID3: l consider the product’s target user group important.
• SID4: l identify with the product’s target user group.

Initial Quantitative Analysis

Running FACTOR syntax in SPSS, I got initial analysis on the full set of measures. I ran the analysis a number of ways.

Overall, high KMO and low Bartlett’s significance are good. 

KMO and Bartlett’s Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		0.936
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	2384.18
	df	276
	Sig.	.000

Forcing six factors (blanking values <0.3):

Pattern Matrix(a)
	Factor
	1	2	3	4	5	6
EMR4 - My assn. w/ P boosts my self-esteem.	0.862
PRH4 - Younger me would [be excited by P].	0.811
EMR2 - I feel a sense of pride when I think of P.	0.741
EMR1 - I feel happy when I think of P.	0.571
IID3 - [Future me should be] happy with P.	0.538
EFF3 - P lets me dem. competence	0.478
IID2 - [Personal growth as] I work on P.	0.407				0.312
SID3 - l consider P’s TUG important.	0.398
EMR3 - My assn. w/ P gives me a feeling of stability.
IID4 - P will influence future of field.		0.785
AID2 - My personal values are rep. in P.		0.676
PRH - I keep mem. from past products.		0.588
IID1 - ... P will help me achieve future career goals.		0.402
PRH2 - P reminds me of past tech important to me.
SID4 - l identify with  P’s TUG.			1.135
SID2 - I feel strong ties with P’s TUG.		0.415	0.467
SID1 - I am glad to belong to P’s TUG.			0.403
EFF2 - I have control over P				0.888
EFF4 - I influence the direction of P.				0.697
AID4 - Telling people about P helps them understand me.					0.563
PRH1 - P is extension of my work history.					0.483
AID1 - P is... who I am right now.		0.401			0.469
AID3 - I see... myself in P.					0.41
EFF1 - I make good decisions about P						1.041
Extraction Method: Maximum Likelihood.
Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 7 iterations.
Detecting emerging factors with eigenvalues > 1.0 (blanking values <0.3).

Detecting emerging factors with eigenvalues > 1.0 (blanking values <0.3).

Pattern Matrix(a)
	Factor
	1	2	3	4
AID1 - P is... who I am right now.	0.782
AID2 - My personal values are rep. in P.	0.764
IID4 - P will influence future of field.	0.733
AID4 - Telling people about P helps them understand me.	0.65
PRH - I keep mem. from past products.	0.583
AID3 - I see... myself in P.	0.464
IID2 - [Personal growth as] I work on P.	0.422	0.399
IID1 - ... P will help me achieve future career goals.	0.415
PRH2 - P reminds me of past tech important to me.	0.334
PRH1 - P is extension of my work history.
EMR2 - I feel a sense of pride when I think of P.		0.789
EMR4 - My ass. w/ P boosts my self-esteem.		0.786
EFF3 - P lets me dem. competence		0.699
PRH4 - Younger me would [be excited by P].		0.661
EMR1 - I feel happy when I think of P.		0.625
IID3 - [Future me should be] happy with P.		0.592
SID3 - l consider P’s TUG important.		0.51
EFF1 - I make good decisions about P		0.459	0.301
EMR3 - My ass. w/ P gives me a feeling of stability.		0.391
EFF4 - I influence the direction of P.			0.811
EFF2 - I have control over P			0.802
SID4 - l identify with  P’s TUG.				1.093
SID2 - I feel strong ties with P’s TUG.	0.395			0.448
SID1 - I am glad to belong to P’s TUG.				0.385
Extraction Method: Maximum Likelihood.
Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 6 iterations.

Some eliminations were made (discussed below) and one large clumpy factor emerged that aggregated three expected latent variables. Further FACTOR syntax was written to explore this clump.

Forcing three factors on the clump.

Pattern Matrix(a)
	Factor
	1	2	3
EMR2 - I feel a sense of pride when I think of P.	0.891
EMR4 - My ass. w/ P boosts my self-esteem.	0.802
EMR1 - I feel happy when I think of P.	0.713
IID3 - [Future me should be] happy with P.	0.643
IID1 - ... P will help me achieve future career goals.	0.352
AID4 - Telling people about P helps them understand me.		0.827
AID1 - P is... who I am right now.		0.657
AID2 - My personal values are rep. in P.		0.42
EMR3 - My ass. w/ P gives me a feeling of stability.	0.345	0.36
IID4 - P will influence future of field.			0.923
Extraction Method: Principal Axis Factoring.
Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 5 iterations.

Notes By Latent Variable

These are a work in progress, and this portion of the post will be updated to reflect new thinking and additional work.

EFF

Was splitting into two groups: EFF1/3 and EFF2/4.

Original Set

• EFF1: I am confident that I make good decisions about the product.
• EFF2: I have control over the product.
• EFF3: The product lets me demonstrate competence in my profession.
• EFF4: I influence the direction of the product.

Dittmar (2011):

“This effectiveness function closely resembles the self-efficacy identity motive, where individuals strive to feel competent and capable of influencing their environment.” […] “The psychological significance of possessions is seen as residing mainly in the control they afford their owner over the physical and social environment, and they are closely linked to identity for precisely that reason.”

EFF1 and 3 are about feeling competent when working on the product.

EFF2 and 4 are about control, by influencing the outcome of the product.

Draft New Qs

Competence (doing the work well)

• I have the skills I need to advance the product.
• Project success depends on my competence.

Control (controlling outcomes)

• I make important decisions about the product.
• I have control over my portion of the product.

Next test will split this group into control and competence factors and test those.

EMR

This factor appears in the three-function clump. When forced into three factors, EMR3 is problematic.

• EMR1: I feel happy when I think of the product.
• EMR2: I feel a sense of pride when I think of the product.
• EMR3: My association with the product gives me a feeling of stability.
• EMR4: My association with the product boosts my self-esteem.

Happy, proud, and self-esteem hang together, but stability weakly associates with two factors, invading the group with mostly AID. If I’d have guessed ahead of time, I’d have said that stability would be a factor with utilitarian devs and less so with game devs, and yet this sample is mostly non-game devs.

Dittmar (2011)

“…individuals use material goods to express, regulate or enhance their mood, find emotional comfort, derive a sense of emotional security, vent their frustration, or escape from unwanted emotional states.”

Emotional functions appear as hedonic, compared to utilitarian, benefits from shopping in consumer research (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994), but we found that emotional buying motives form a coherent, internally consistent dimension separate from other types of buying motives, reflecting concerns such as ‘I get a real buzz from buying things’ or ‘I often buy things because it puts me in a better mood’ (Dittmar, 2008).

Draft New Qs

• Thinking about the product improves my mood.
• I get a buzz when I solve a problem with the product.
• I find work on the product emotionally rewarding.

 

AID

AID3 wasn’t tracking with the others and was removed: “I see part of myself in the product.”

This is the inverse of the actual theory (“product is part of me” instead of “I am part of product”) so it makes sense why it might not track. Need to write a replacement.

Original Set

• AID1: The product is an important part of who I am right now.
• AID2: My personal values are represented in the product.
• AID3: I see part of myself in the product.
• AID4: When I meet someone new, telling them about the product helps them understand who I am.

Dittmar (2011)

We collected open-ended accounts of buying motives in women’s shopping diaries. These diaries showed that concerns with expressing identity, such as ‘something that fits “me”’ or ‘just how I want to look’, were reported as frequently as non-identity concerns[….] We also demonstrated that the motive to buy ‘because it expresses what is unique about me’ is commonly endorsed (overall ratings fell above the scale midpoint; Dittmar, 2008).

[…] material possessions are viewed as a particularly useful source of

information about others’ identity, and that identity inferences show a degree of accuracy. A US study showed that 84% of observers preferred possessions over other sources of information, and that those who made identity inferences on the basis of possessions were more accurate (in the sense that they agreed more strongly with owners’ self-ratings) than observers who had chosen information about behaviours or activities (Burroughs, Drews, & Hallman, 1991).

Draft New Qs

• The product is part of me.
• The product fits me.
• The product suits me.
• The product is what I want to work on now.
• The product expresses something [unique about me] / [who I am].
• The product expresses something about who I am.

 

IID

IID2 wasn’t tracking with the others and was removed: “I am growing into a better version of me as I work on the product.”

IID3 uses an emotional term, and it’s loading into EMR in certain scenarios. Dittmar uses “feel” in her description, but I feel it’s being used “intuitively” and not emotionally.

Original set

• IID1: I have a strong sense of how the product will help me achieve future career goals.
• IID2: I am growing into a better version of me as I work on the product.
• IID3: I want to make sure “future me” is happy with the completed product.
• IID4: I feel the product will influence the future of the whole field.

Dittmar (2011):

“This effect is explained by self-esteem and self-enhancement motives, whereby ideal self-product congruity can help people to reduce discrepancies between their actual and ideal self.”

“Ideal identity motives emerged as a coherent, internally consistent, and conceptually distinct set of buying motives, with ‘makes me feel more like the person I want to be’ as an example item (Dittmar, 2008).”

“people make use of material possessions, among other strategies, to compensate for perceived inadequacies in their self-concept (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982).”

“This implies that people pursue material symbols in order to reduce discrepancies between their actual and ideal self, which raises the question of whether material goods are a beneficial strategy for dealing with identity deficits.”

More Thinking

I really don’t want to directly ask about inadequacies. I think it’d be better to talk about self-improvement instead. “The product helps me compensate for my inadequacies” seems much worse than “The product lets me improve myself.”

Draft New Qs

• I am improving professionally as I work on the product.
• The product gives me the opportunity to grow professionally.
• It is important that I will be satisfied with the completed product. [Could be EMR, but is forward-looking]
• I feel personally invested in the successful completion of the product. [I’m not sure where this fits, really.]
• The product helps me feel more like the person I want to be.
• The product helps me feel more like my ideal self.

PRH

The group wasn’t performing well in reliability tests and was removed. It may be possible to completely re-write the set for another run. Probably just let it go. Michelle thinks this has promise, so I’ll revise.

Original Set

• PRH1: The product is a natural extension of my professional work history.
• PRH2: The product reminds me of technologies that were important to me in the past.
• PRH3: I keep memorabilia regarding past products in my work space.
• PRH4: A much younger me would be excited to know I was working on the product today.

Dittmar (2011)

“Investigations concerned with relocations and major life transitions demonstrate that people adjust better if they can take their treasured possessions with them, because they symbolise a person’s life experiences, and thus the historical continuity of self.[…] This research highlights that symbolic aspects of possessions help people to maintain a general sense of identity, integrity, and self-continuity, providing a symbolic record of their personal history [emphasis added].

More Thinking

PRH1 seems important since it’s about a symbolic record of personal history (“The product provides a symbolic record of my personal history”) but can be simplified and focused. Something like, “The product is symbolic of my work history.”

PRH2 seems overly complicated, particularly the “important” part. The original idea was to tie history to non-work tech, but maybe that’s misguided and I should just focus on work. “This project reminds me of my past successes” or “This project reminds me of other tech I’ve developed” or both.

I think PRH3 has to go because it’s about OTHER projects, not THIS project. Something similar might work, though. Something like “I intend to keep memorabilia from this project.” This is INTENT to use as a PRH, not CURRENT use as PRH. Or maybe it’s really about the memorabilia and not the project. Feels a bit sketchy, but can be included for testing.

PRH4 was supposed to invoke this sort of feeling: When I consider buying a new storage device today, I find I’m a bit nostalgic for when I was working with old, relatively tiny hard drives in my youth. Perhaps “The product makes me nostalgic for past technologies.” Note that this isn’t about past work products, just past tech (“This new first-person shooter we’re building makes me nostalgic for DOOM, which I played as a kid”).

Draft New Qs

• The product is symbolic of my work history.
• I intend to keep memorabilia from this project.
• This project reminds me of my past successes.
• This project reminds me of other tech I’ve developed.
• The product makes me nostalgic for past technologies.

SID

SID3 wasn’t tracking with the others and was removed: “l consider the product’s target user group important.”

This is from the literature, so its removal seems unfortunate. I should probably take another look at the source and see if there’s another option that will fit better, and if I can understand why SID3 might not work for my population.

(Note: SID can be with MANY groups, but I’ve focused on the end user group. There may be other groups to investigate at other times, like the team and organization.)

Original Set

These are the 10 items from Brown et al. 1986). Brown is aware of Tajfel and Turner (1979), but uses other sources as well. I should make sure I’m happy with the theoretical antecedents of Brown, and perhaps look for other authors’ guidance on measures for social identity, which I’m told should be available.

Brown suggests they’re in three categories: “awareness of group membership (which contributes to self-definition), evaluation (which relates to self-esteem) and affect.” Originally, I used one of each, with a duplicate affect. SID3 was the lone “evaluation” item chosen (#1 below). I rejected the reversed factors, focusing on the positive.

1. l am a person who considers the X group important. (EVALUATION)
2. I am a person who identifies with the X group. (AWARENESS)
3. I am a person who feels strong ties with the X group. (AFFECT)
4. I am a person who is glad to belong to the X group. (AFFECT)
5. I am a person who sees myself as belonging to the X group. (AWARENESS)
6. I am a person who makes excuses for belonging to the X group. (EVALUATION)
7. I am a person who tries to hide belonging to the X group. (AFFECT)
8. I am a person who feels held back by the X group. (AFFECT)
9. I am a person who is annoyed to say I’m a member of the X group. (AFFECT)
10. I am a person who criticizes the X group. (AFFECT)

My versions were edited down. These are my originals:

• SID1: I am glad to belong to the product’s target user group. (4 from Brown)
• SID2: I feel strong ties with the product’s target user group. (3 from Brown)
• SID3: l consider the product’s target user group important. (1 from Brown)
• SID4: l identify with the product’s target user group. (2 from Brown)

Draft  New Qs

Item 5 seems like an OK replacement, when edited down like my others. The other evaluation item is reversed.

• I see myself as belonging to the target user group.
• I am concerned about my reputation among the product’s target user group.
• I want to make a good impression on the product’s target user group.

 

Summary of Changes

Deletions, additions, and -> conceptual changes

EFF-CONTROL

• I have control over the product.
• I influence the direction of the product.
• I make important decisions about the product.
• I have control over my portion of the product.

EFF-COMPETENCE

• I am confident that I make good decisions about the product.
• The product lets me demonstrate competence in my profession.
• I have the skills I need to advance the product.
• Project success depends on my competence.

EMR

• I feel happy when I think of the product.
• I feel a sense of pride when I think of the product.
• My association with the product gives me a feeling of stability.
• My association with the product boosts my self-esteem.
• Thinking about the product improves my mood.
• I get a buzz when I solve a problem with the product.
• I find work on the product emotionally rewarding.

AID

• The product is an important part of who I am right now.
• My personal values are represented in the product.
• I see part of myself in the product.
• When I meet someone new, telling them about the product helps them understand who I am.
• The product is part of me.
• The product fits me.
• The product suits me.
• The product is what I want to work on now.
• The product expresses something about who I am.

IID

• I have a strong sense of how the product will help me achieve future career goals.
• I am growing into a better version of me as I work on the product.
• I want to make sure “future me” is happy with the completed product.
• I feel the product will influence the future of the whole field.
• I am improving professionally as I work on the product.
• The product gives me the opportunity to grow professionally.
• It is important that I will be satisfied with the completed product. [Could be EMR, but is forward-looking]
• I feel personally invested in the successful completion of the product. [I’m not sure where this fits, really.]
• The product helps me feel more like the person I want to be.
• The product helps me feel more like my ideal self.

PRH

• The product is a natural extension of my professional work history.
• The product reminds me of technologies that were important to me in the past.
• I keep memorabilia regarding past products in my work space.
• A much younger me would be excited to know I was working on the product today.
• The product is symbolic of my work history.
• I intend to keep memorabilia from this project.
• This project reminds me of my past successes.
• This project reminds me of other tech I’ve developed.
• The product makes me nostalgic for past technologies.

SID1

• I am glad to belong to the product’s target user group.
• I feel strong ties with the product’s target user group.
• l consider the product’s target user group important. (1 from Brown)
• I identify with the product’s target user group.
• I see myself as belonging to the product’s target user group.
• I am concerned about my reputation among the product’s target user group.
• I want to make a good impression on the product’s target user group.

 

 

Citations