CARES Mattering Pilot Dataset

Cross-sectional survey data (N = 363) collected in Spring 2024 at a large Midwestern university (IRB-approved). Undergraduate students recruited through marketing courses completed measures of mattering fulfillment (CARES-30 scale: Connection, Agency, Recognition, Equity, Security across micro, meso, and macro ecological levels; 7-point agreement scales), zero-sum beliefs (8-item Belief in a Zero-Sum Game scale; Różycka-Tran, Boski, and Wojciszke, 2015), political ideology (single item, 7-point scale), and daily platform use (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X/Twitter, Reddit). Demographic variables include gender and age. Sample is 91% White, 48.5% female, mean age 19.4 years, with a conservative skew relative to national Gen Z benchmarks. Substantive analyses use the validated CARES-20 micro/meso subscale (α = .92). Macro-level items are included but exhibited measurement instability and should be treated as exploratory. These data support the pilot study reported in "When Consumers Don't Feel They Matter: A CARES Framework for Anticipating Brand Backlash" (submitted to the Journal of Advertising Research).