Consumer Behavior and Psychological Empowerment: Proposing a Measurement Scale

This paper proposes a new conception of consumer psychological empowerment while substantiating and defining its different facets. To this end, we conducted 18 interviews with biological food consumers which have been recorded and transcribed and analyzed using the Sphinx software. The results indicate how this new concept behaves and which consists of four dimensions and two sub-dimensions issued from the literature and the exploratory research: meaning, impact, self-determination, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and competence. These dimensions interact with each other to form the concept of consumer psychological empowerment (CPE). This latter may be taken as a new element in understanding consumers’ expectations towards organic food consumption.