Our Measures

VirtHuLab Scales

All scales created and validated by the laboratory may be used freely, as long as there is no for-profit purpose, citing the authors appropriately. Any violations can result in legal actions. 

By clicking on the scale's title it is possible to explore the scale thoroughly.

Social Media Capital Scale (SMC)

The scale consists of 7 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The scale aims to capture people’s capability of building social capital on social media (SMC) by evaluating two aspects (i.e., (1) social media confidence and fluency and (2) social connection with others via social media). The SMC scale has two factors (Factor 1 = Item1+Item2+Item3+Item4; Factor 2 = Item 5+Item6+Item7). No reverse-scored items.


Source: Duradoni, M., Meacci, S., Panerai, G., Salvatori, G., & Guazzini, A. (2022). Development and Validation of the Social Media Capital Scale (SMC): A Brand New Measure for Online Social Capital. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2022.

Internet Locus of Control Scale (I-LOC)

The scale consists of 18 items measured on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The scale aims to capture people’s locus of control on the Internet. The scale has two factors: Internal and External (see column D of the table below for scoring). No reverse-scored items. 


Source: Duradoni, M., Salvatori, G., Meacci, S., Panerai, G., & Guazzini, A. (2021). Development and validation of the Internet Locus of Control Scale (I-LOC). new media & society, 14614448211019495.

Need for Online Social Feedback Scale (NfOSF).

The scale consists of 5 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The scale aims to capture people’s perceived need for online social feedback (not limited to likes) on most social media The NFOSF scale has two factors (Factor 1 = Item1+Item2+Item3; Factor 2 = Item 4+Item5). No reverse-scored items. 


Source: Duradoni, M., Spadoni, V., Gursesli, M.C., & Guazzini, A. (2022). Development and Validation of the Need for Online Social Feedback (NfOSF) Scale. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2023. 

Digital Life Balance Scale

The scale consists of 4 items measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) to capture people’s both harmonic (i.e., balanced) and disharmonic (i.e.. unbalanced) use of ICTs. The scoring range varies between a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 24.DLB total score is the sum (after reversing the item 2 score) of all the items. 


Source: Duradoni, M., Serritella, E., Avolio, C., Arnetoli, C., & Guazzini, A. (2022). Development and Validation of the Digital Life Balance (DLB) Scale: A Brand-New Measure for Both Harmonic and Disharmonic Use of ICTs. Behavioral Sciences, 12(12), 489. 

VirtHuLab in-language validations

Fear of Vaccination Scale (VFS-6) (Malas & Tolsá, 2021)

The scale is composed of 6 items that were rated on a 5-point scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) with scores ranging from 6 to 30 for the total score. The scale envisaged two dimensions, namely cognitive fear (item1+item2+item4) and somatic fear (item3+item5+item6). 


Source: Duradoni, M., Veloso, M. V., La Gamma, M., Monciatti, A. M., & Guazzini, A. (2022). Italian version of the Vaccination Fear Scale (VFS-6): internal and external validation. Mediterranean Journal of Clinical Psychology, 10(2). 

Social Media Engagement Questionnaire (SME-Q) (Przybylski et al., 2013)

The scale consists of a 4-item scale (5-items in the original scale) that measures the extent to which people use social media during the day (e.g., “within 15 minutes of waking up”). The measure is on an 8-point Likert scale from 1=not one-day last week to 8=every day last week. In the Italian version the scale was better represented by two factors, that is, a factor relating to the use of SN around sleep time (item1+item4) and a factor relating to the use during meals (item2+item3).

Source: currently submitted to Computers in Human Behavior 

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