Naturalness Attitudinal Scale (NAS): Development and validation of new scales to measure attitudes toward naturalness for different product categories

Abstract

Recent studies in consumer research have evidenced that attitudes toward naturalness vary among consumers. The purpose of our research is to determine whether subjects' attitudes toward naturalness also vary according to the product category at hand. To answer this question, we developed and validated three scales that measure attitudes toward naturalness for three product categories: food, personal care products, and household products. Our results revealed that the scales have satisfactory psychometric properties, providing new tools to measure attitudes toward naturalness for different product categories. Furthermore, for the first time, the present study allowed the comparison between the attitude toward naturalness across product categories. Our results confirmed that consumers' attitudes are highly product-category dependent, with attitudes toward natural foods being more positive than attitudes toward natural inedible products. We conclude by formulating hypotheses about the underlying factors of these differences that would be worth exploring in future research.