Brand Ownership as a Central Component of Adolescent Self-esteem: The Development of A New Self-Esteem Scale

Abstract

This paper outlines the development of a new scale to measure adolescent selfesteem. The new scale addresses weaknesses in existing measures which have failed to consider the growth of the consumer society in the western world and the impact of this on the formation of adolescent self-esteem. The development of this scale includes extensive qualitative research with over 100 high school pupils, which led to a series of quantitative data collection and analysis processes to develop the scale. In the final stage, data was collected from 889 pupils and analysed to confirm the validity and reliability of the new measure. The result of this work is a 21 item self-esteem scale comprising of 4 distinct, yet interrelated factors: self-evaluation; social ability; social comparison effects and notably, brand ownership. The findings provide an updated and upgraded measure of self-esteem which takes into consideration the specific audience of adolescents living in a consumer culture. The scale development process demonstrates that when considering the formation of self-esteem, the influence of the use and possession of commercial brands is as relevant as the traditional factors/components such as academic achievement or sporting prowess.