Shoppers’ susceptibility to information overload: scale development and validation

ABSTRACT

This manuscript investigates whether shoppers differ in their perceptions of their likelihood of experiencing negative effects from exposure to too much information (i.e. information overload), and develops a means of identifying individual differences in this likelihood amongst shoppers. Prior work on information overload implies that some shoppers are more susceptible to feeling its effects than others. The objective of this manuscript is to develop and validate a scale measuring this individual difference, termed shoppers’ susceptibility to information overload (SSIO). Shoppers’ susceptibility to information overload has implications for consumers trying to lessen stress, retailers working to improve or maintain image, and brand marketers concerned with positioning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

The studies reported in this manuscript were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Illinois State University under the following numbers: Study 1, IRB-2017-1048932; Study 2, IRB-2019-444; Studies 3 and 5, IRB – 2019-383 and IRB −2020-62; Study 4, IRB-2019-79. The same board waived the requirement of informed consent.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10696679.2022.2121287