Reliability and validity of Chinese version of consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence scale in college students

Objective To test the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (CSII) scale.

Methods A total of 1 068 college students were recruited in the study.Sample 1 including 608 college students was tested for item analysis and exploratory factor analysis, and 160 students of them were retested for test-retest reliability with 2 weeks interval.Sample 2 including 460 college students was tested for confirmatory factor analysis and measurement across gender.Reliability was analyzed in the total sample (n=1 068).The criterion validity was tested with the self-esteem scale (SES) and the youth materialism scale (YMS) by choosing 485 college students form sample 1 and sample 2.

Results Two factors were produced in the exploratory factor analysis, including normative and informational, accounting for 59.78% of the total variance.Confirmatory factor analysis showed nice goodness of fit indices for CSII (χ²/df=2.604, GFI=0.954, RMSEA=0.059, CFI=0.970).The total scores of CSII were negatively correlated with the total scores of SES (r=-0.731, P < 0.01), and the total scores of CSII were positively with the total scores of YMS (r=0.723, P < 0.01).Reliability analysis showed that Cronbach's α coefficients of CSII and two dimensions ranged from 0.83 to 0.89, and ICC for test-retest reliability ranged from 0.73 to 0.78.

Conclusions The Chinese version of CSII has good validity and reliability, which can be used as an effective instrument to assess the susceptibility to interpersonal influence in college student consumers.