Brazilians’attitude towards personal debt: an approach to developing and validating a measurement scale

This study uses Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to construct a reliable and valid instrument to measure individuals' attitudes toward debt. This process resulted in the development of the Debt Attitude Scale – DASBR, aimed at analyzing the propensity for debt in the context of emerging economies, such as Brazil. The methodology followed a rigorous process to substantiate the construct, develop the measurement items, and validate the scale. The EFA results allowed the items to be identified and allocated into four dimensions, which were then called Savings Behavior, [Lack of] Self-Control, Influence of Societal Morality, and Time Preference. The CFA results showed that statistical indices, such as chi-square, chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio, CFI, TLI, SRMR, and RMSEA, reached values ​​considered acceptable in the literature. The Composite Reliability (CR) and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) coefficients used to assess convergent validity indicate that the DASBR can be considered acceptable for measuring the propensity to personal debt, since it presented adequate model adjustment indices, where most of the dimensions analyzed met the convergent validity and reliability criteria.