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Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure

INCOM
psychologysocial sciencesTerms not stated: check with the authors

Permission: Terms not stated: check with the authors. The developers publish no terms of use that Folio could find. Ask the authors or the publisher before using it in a study, and cite the original publication.

An 11-item measure of individual differences in social comparison orientation: the tendency to compare one's abilities and opinions with those of others.

Items
11
Response format
5-point agreement scale
Version
1.0
Subscales
2

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Social comparison orientation was measured with the 11-item Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (INCOM; Gibbons & Buunk, 1999), which has Ability and Opinion subscales rated on a 5-point scale from 'I disagree strongly' to 'I agree strongly'.

Citing this in a methods section? See the APA 7 guide (Author–date citations for psychology and the social sciences). Or compare all six citation styles.

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Reliability & validation

Notes
Original-study reliability not verified; the original article was not accessible. Items 1-6 form the Ability subscale and items 7-11 the Opinion subscale, with one reverse-scored item in each.
Validation population
American and Dutch samples (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999)

Subscales

AbilityOpinion

Response anchors

I disagree strongly · I agree strongly

Known limitations

The Ability and Opinion subscales are highly correlated, so many studies use a single total score even though a two-factor model fit better in the original validation. The scale was built for American and Dutch respondents, and use in other cultures relies on later adaptation studies.

Original citation

Gibbons, F. X., & Buunk, B. P. (1999). Individual differences in social comparison: Development of a scale of social comparison orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 129-142.

https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.1.129

Questions researchers ask

What does the INCOM measure?

An 11-item measure of individual differences in social comparison orientation: the tendency to compare one's abilities and opinions with those of others.

How many items does the INCOM have?

The Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (INCOM) has 11 items across 2 subscales: Ability, Opinion.

Is the INCOM free to use?

Folio could not find published terms of use for the INCOM. Ask the authors or the publisher before using it in a study, and cite the original publication.

Who developed the INCOM, and how do I cite it?

Gibbons, F. X., & Buunk, B. P. (1999). Individual differences in social comparison: Development of a scale of social comparison orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 129-142. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.1.129

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Related scales

SDO7Social Dominance Orientation (SDO7)AHSAdult Dispositional Hope ScaleAMS-C 28Academic Motivation Scale — College VersionBFI-2Big Five Inventory-2BFI-44Big Five InventoryBFNEBrief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale

Library entry verified November 2026. Metadata is provided for reference. Questionnaires are built in Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing, and can be taken to Qualtrics, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms, with their CSV responses brought back for scoring.