Consumer Animosity and Consumer Ethnocentrism

Abstract

Consumer animosity is a construct recently introduced to the marketing literature to help marketers better understand the factors that influence consumer attitudes toward foreign products. The present study provides empirical evidence for discriminant validity between this construct and consumer ethnocentrism. Data from the 1992 National Election Study, a nationally representative survey of U.S. citizens (n = 2225), were analyzed using logit regression. Two key NES questions were used as proxies for the constructs, and unique antecedents were hypothesized. The findings support 11 of 12 hypotheses. Specifically, six antecedents were found to predict consumer ethnocentrism only, while three were unique to consumer animosity. These results show that the profile of the ethnocentric consumer is different from the consumer holding animosity towards a specific exporting nation (in this case, Japan). Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Key Words:

• Consumer animosity
• consumer ethnocentrism
• the U.S.A.
• Japan