Scale library · Consumer behavior
Buying impulsiveness scale: Rook & Fisher (1995)
Rook and Fisher (1995) define buying impulsiveness as a tendency to buy spontaneously, unreflectively, immediately and kinetically, driven by emotional attraction to the product. The original scale has 9 items, is unidimensional, and measures a personal trait rather than a single purchase. The original Journal of Consumer Research article used it to test how social norms moderate impulsive buying. It suits theses on impulse buying on e-commerce marketplaces, in livestream selling and among Gen Z shoppers.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: Buying Impulsiveness Scale
- Constructs: 1
- Items: 9 (1 reverse-coded)
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Buying Impulsiveness (BI, 9 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| BI1 | I often buy things spontaneously. | No |
| BI2 | "Just do it" describes the way I buy things. | No |
| BI3 | I often buy things without thinking. | No |
| BI4 | "I see it, I buy it" describes me. | No |
| BI5 | "Buy now, think about it later" describes me. | No |
| BI6 | Sometimes I feel like buying things on the spur-of-the-moment. | No |
| BI7 | I buy things according to how I feel at the moment. | No |
| BI8 (R) | I carefully plan most of my purchases. | Yes |
| BI9 | Sometimes I am a bit reckless about what I buy. | No |
Response scale
A 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree … 5 = Strongly agree) is the format most used by later studies; some use 7 points. Higher scores mean stronger buying impulsiveness.
Recoding reverse-coded items: 1–5 scale: new score = 1 + 5 − score = 6 − score; 1–7 scale: new score = 1 + 7 − score = 8 − score.
Licence and permission
The items are published in an academic article and widely used in research. Cite the original article; no permission is needed for non-commercial academic use.
Sources (APA 7)
- Einarsson, S. B., Sigurðsson, B. H., Kjartansdóttir, S. H., Magnússon, P., & Sigurðsson, J. F. (2024). Impulsive buying and deferment of gratification among adults with ADHD. Clinical Psychology in Europe, 6(3), Article e9339. https://doi.org/10.32872/cpe.9339
- Fenton-O'Creevy, M., & Furnham, A. (2022). Money attitudes, financial capabilities, and impulsiveness as predictors of wealth accumulation. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278047
- Gong, X., Yee, C. L., Lee, S. Y., Saif, A. N. M., Liu, M., & Anonthi, F. (2024). Unveiling the enigma of blind box impulse buying curiosity: The moderating role of price consciousness. Heliyon, 10(24), Article e40564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40564
- Li, H. X., Hassan, K., Malik, H. A., Anuar, M. M., Khan, T. I., & Yaacob, M. R. (2022). Impulsive and compulsive buying tendencies and consumer resistance to digital innovations: The moderating role of perceived threat of COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, Article 912051. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.912051
- Rook, D. W., & Fisher, R. J. (1995). Normative influences on impulsive buying behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 22(3), 305–313. https://doi.org/10.1086/209452
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.