Abstract

DAKDUK, Silvana; GONZALEZ, Mónica  and  MALAVE, José. Development of an attribution scale on low-income consumers. rev.latinoam.psicol. [online]. 2012, vol.44, n.3, pp.149-161. ISSN 0120-0534.

Research on low-income consumers (LIC) has focused on their behaviors, and only exceptionally on what other social groups attribute to those consumers. Notwithstanding the implications which attributed features may have for changing the conditions of such consumers, research has been made in contexts where LICs are minority and with samples composed of subjects with low politic or economic influence. This article presents the development of scale for measuring attributions about LICs using a politically relevant sample. We conducted a field study and applied the scale to a pilot sample of 204 graduated students, occupying middle management positions in organizations that were working on business initiatives aimed at LICs. The final sample consisted of 370 graduated students, with the same characteristics of those chosen for the pilot sample. Psychometric analysis revealed high internal consistency of the final version of the instrument (alpha = 0.89) and a factor solution comprising two dimensions: sociability and entrepreneurship moderately attributed to LICs. Additionally, significant correlations were found between age and sociability, between sex and entrepreneurship, and between individual beliefs about the causes of poverty and both dimensions of attributions about LICs.

Keywords : Attribution; Low-Income Consumers; Sociability; Entrepreneurship; Beliefs about Poverty.

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