title: When Is a New Scale not a New Scale? The Case of the Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale and the Compulsive Online Shopping Scale.
abstract: Manchiraju et al. (International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1-15, 2016) published the Compulsive Online Shopping Scale (COSS) in theInternational Journal of Mental Health and Addiction(IJMHA). To develop their measure of compulsive online shopping, Manchiraju and colleagues adapted items from the seven-item Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale (BSAS) and its' original 28-item item pool. Manchiraju et al. did not add or remove any of the original seven items, and did not substantially change the content of any of the 28 items on which the BSAS was based. They simply added the word "online" to each existing item. Given that the BSAS was specifically developed to take into account the different ways in which people now shop and to include both online and offline shopping, there does not seem to be a good rationale for developing an online version of the BSAS. It is argued that the COSS is not really an adaptation of the BSAS but an almost identical instrument based on the original 28-item pool.
authors.affiliation: International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: Mark D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Griffiths
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: Cecilie S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Andreassen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Science, Bergen, Norway ; Norwegian Competence Center for Sleep Disorders, Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: Ståle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pallesen
authors.affiliation: Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA.
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Bilder
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Science, Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: Torbjørn
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Torsheim
authors.affiliation: OCD Clinic, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA USA.
authors.forename: Elias
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Aboujaoude
keywords: Behavioral addiction; Bergen shopping addiction scale; Compulsive buying; Compulsive shopping; Psychometric scales; Shopping addiction