Measuring Perceived Structural Constraints on Choice: The Structural Awareness Scale

Structural factors such as infrastructure, regulation, and market dynamics shape the everyday choices individuals make—from the affordability of healthy food to the accessibility of sustainable transportation. Yet psychological research has rarely examined how people perceive structural influences on their own behavior. Addressing this gap, we introduce the Structural Awareness Scale (SAS), a novel instrument capturing individual differences in the extent to which people recognize structural constraints in their choice environments. Across four studies, we develop and validate the scale in two key domains, sustainability and food choices. The SAS demonstrated high internal consistency and showed theoretically meaningful convergent and incremental validity regarding policy-related constructs (desire for governmental intervention, policy support, need for system change) and discriminant validity with regard to individualizing or internalizing constructs, including trait self-control, self-efficacy, and the internal allocation of responsibility. Moreover, higher SAS was associated with lower socio-economic status and more progressive political orientation. Our findings suggest that structural awareness is a distinct and measurable dimension of social perception that relates to how people understand responsibility and support collective solutions. The SAS offers a promising tool for researchers and policymakers interested in public receptivity to structural interventions in socially and politically contested domains.