Consumers' Need for Uniqueness: Scale Development and Validation

Consumers acquire and display material possessions for the purpose of feeling differentiated from other people and, thus, are targeted with a variety of marketing stimuli that attempt to enhance self-perceptions of uniqueness. Because the pursuit of differentness (or counterconformity motivation) varies across individuals to in-fluence consumer responses, we develop and validate a trait measure of consum-ers ’ need for uniqueness. Consumers ’ need for uniqueness is defined as an in-dividual’s pursuit of differentness relative to others that is achieved through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of consumer goods for the purpose of de-veloping and enhancing one’s personal and social identity. Following assessments of the scale’s latent structure, a series of validation studies examines the scale’s validity. The presentation of empirical work is followed by a discussion of how consumers ’ need for uniqueness could be used in better understanding consumer behavior and the role consumption plays in people’s expression of identity. Being different from others or becoming distinctiveamong a larger group often results from signals con-veyed by the material objects that consumers choose to dis-