Where does consumer ethnocentrism collide?

Consumer ethnocentrism is a person's beliefs about whether it is appropriate, and even moral, to buy foreign-made products instead of domestic ones. Shimp and Sharma introduced the idea in 1987 and built the CETSCALE, a 17-item measure of how strongly a consumer feels that buying imports harms the home economy and is unpatriotic. They validated it across four studies and showed it is moderately predictive of attitudes toward foreign goods and of willingness to buy them. This is the referent for the page: a marketing scale about domestic purchasing, not a general attitude toward other groups. Its items are all about products and jobs at home, which is what keeps it separate from the broader trait it is named after.[1]

Unit

A consumer's belief about the appropriateness of buying foreign versus domestic products

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

The 17-item CETSCALE, seven-point Likert items; attitudes toward and willingness to buy foreign goods as criteria

Ethnocentrism in its original meaning is the general tendency to place one's own group at the center of things and to judge every other group against it, usually rating the in-group as superior. William Graham Sumner coined the word in Folkways in 1906 to describe this in-group and out-group pattern. LeVine and Campbell later gathered the competing theories of where it comes from and how it shapes ethnic attitudes and conflict. This is the parent construct: a broad disposition studied in sociology and social psychology that reaches far beyond shopping. Consumer ethnocentrism borrows the label and the in-group logic but narrows it to one behavior, buying domestic, which is why the two should not be treated as the same measure.[2][3]

Unit

A person's disposition to favor their own group and judge out-groups against it

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Attitude and behavior scales toward in-groups and out-groups across many domains, not purchasing alone

Consumer animosity is anger or hostility toward a particular country, arising from past or present military, political, or economic conflict, that spills over into a refusal to buy that country's products. Klein, Ettenson, and Morris set out the animosity model in 1998, testing it with mainland Chinese consumers' feelings toward Japan and Japanese goods. They found that animosity lowered purchases of Japanese products over and above any judgment of product quality, and separately from consumer ethnocentrism. The key difference is the target: animosity is aimed at one specific nation, while consumer ethnocentrism is a general reluctance to buy anything foreign. A shopper can hold animosity toward one country and still happily buy imports from everywhere else.[4]

Unit

A consumer's hostility toward one specific country and its products

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

War and economic animosity scales toward a named country; purchase of that country's products as the criterion

Consumer cosmopolitanism is an openness to, and interest in, foreign products, cultures, and people, together with an appreciation of the diversity that imports bring. Riefler, Diamantopoulos, and Siguaw developed and validated a measure of it in 2012 and argued it is a construct in its own right, not simply the low end of the CETSCALE. A consumer can score high on both cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism, or low on both, so the two are related but not mirror images. This is the pole most often mistaken for a reverse-scored ethnocentrism scale, alongside consumer patriotism, which taps pride in the nation rather than openness to others. Keeping cosmopolitanism separate matters because treating it as the CETSCALE turned upside down throws away a real difference in what is being measured.[5]

Unit

A consumer's openness to foreign products, cultures, and people

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

A validated consumer cosmopolitanism scale spanning open-mindedness, diversity appreciation, and consumption across borders