Marketing Letters 12:2, 189±203, 2001 # 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Preliminary Metric Investigations into the Nature of the ``Postmodern Consumer'' A. FUAT FIRAT Professorof Marketing, School of Management, Arizona State University West, PO Box 37100, 4701 W. Thunderbird Rd., Phoenix, AZ, 85069. E-mail: fuat.®rat@asu.edu CLIFFORD J. SHULTZ, II Professorand Marley Chair, Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management, Arizona State University, 7001 E. Williams Field Rd., Mesa, AZ 85212. E-mail: atcjs@asu.edu Received February 2000; Revised November 2000; Accepted January 2001 Abstract The purpose of this research is to design and to test an instrument to measure postmodern consumer orientations. The construct is articulated and operationalized using three dimensions that particularly relate to consumer orientationsregarding identity, reality, and subject-hood. Each dimension is measured using four items that were developed based on literature review and prior qualitative research. This paper reports successful results from the con®rmatory factor analysis verifying empirical viability of the measures. Results from further analyses of hypotheses relating to consumer characteristics, such as materialism, Machiavellianism, and locus of control impressions, are also reported to provide greater insight into the nature of the ``postmodern consumer''. The postmodern has generated considerable interest among academics and practitioners of consumer research and marketing (e.g., Brown 1993, 1995; Frat and Venkatesh 1995; Frat, Dholakia, and Venkatesh 1995; Holbrook 1993; Stern 1993; Hirschman and Holbrook 1992; Ogilvy 1990; Sherry 1991; Frat 1990; Venkatesh 1989). This interest has resulted in some qualitative research, conducted mainly to identify the dimensions or components=constituents of postmodern culture, and to locate the postmodern consumer (Belk 1997; Cova 1995; Venkatesh 1992). There have been attempts to classify an array of conditions as they especially relate to consumers and consumption (e.g., Brown 1993; Frat and Venkatesh 1993; Frat and Shultz 1997; Holbrook 1993; Van Raaij 1993). Marketers can bene®t from measuring some of these identi®ed postmodern conditions through methods that will enable further investigation into the nature of the postmodern consumer. This task is not an easy undertaking, however. The complex construct ``postmodern'' has multiple components (see, for example, Frat and Shultz 1997). Constructing and verifying rigorous quantitative measures of the different components of the construct and, at the same time, identifying the most relevant and illuminating relationships it can produce with other constructs and measurement scales is, indeed, complex. These measurements and interpretations of various relationships emanating from them are processes that must still be considered evolving, even after the work reported here.