The effect of acculturation and ethnic identification on consumer disidentification and consumption: An investigation of U.S. Hispanics

This study examines the antecedents and outcomes of consumer disidentification (CDI) among immigrants and the role that cultural change plays in affecting this consumer orientation. Specifically, it explores the effect of acculturation and ethnic identification on host nation sentiments (i.e., host nation identification, disidentification, and affinity) and how the latter influence CDI. Then, it assesses the effect of CDI on consumer behaviors including product quality judgments and willingness to buy products originating in the host country. Survey data from a convenience sample of 555 adults of Cuban and Puerto Rican origin, who live in the USA, confirm that disidentification with the host nation is the basis of CDI. Acculturation is the process through which disidentification with the host nation and the resulting CDI can be mitigated. However, ethnic identification shows inconsistencies in affecting consumers' sentiments toward the host nation and CDI. While CDI is negatively related to consumers' willingness to buy domestic products, it does not seem to affect consumers' willingness to buy domestic products through their product quality judgments. Practically, this study facilitates strategic marketing decisions that are related to the presentation of country‐of‐origin (COO) product attributes in marketing communication and branding campaigns. This study is one of the few empirical studies on CDI, and it focuses on COO effects of domestic rather than foreign products among subcultures within national boundaries. Understanding COO effects among subnational cultural consumers is of primary importance given the ever‐increasing ethnic diversification of consumer markets.     

Estimating national populations: cross‐cultural differences and availability effects

Estimates of national population were studied in two experiments. In Experiment 1, Canadian and Chinese undergraduates rated their knowledge of 112 countries and then estimated the population of each. In Experiment 2, Canadians rated their knowledge of 52 countries and then provided population estimates for these primed countries and for a comparable set of 52 unprimed countries. In Experiment 1, participants from both nations produced estimates that resembled those obtained from Americans in prior studies (Brown and Siegler, 1992 , 1993 , 1996 , 2001 ). However, there were several reliable cross‐national differences in performance which appear to reflect cross‐cultural differences in task‐relevant naive domain knowledge. In addition, both experiments produced findings consistent with the claim that availability‐based intuitions play an important role in this task. In Experiment 1, cross‐national differences in rated knowledge predicted cross‐national differences in estimated population; in Experiment 2, primed country names elicited larger population estimates than unprimed country names. We conclude by arguing for the general utility of this hybrid approach to real‐world estimation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cross‐Cultural Integrity Testing as a Marker of Regional Corruption Rates

Despite the extensive research on integrity testing in personnel psychology, very little cross‐cultural evidence is currently available. The present study compares mean integrity test scores across 27 countries, based on data collected from 60,952 job applicants, and examines the relationship between these scores and a comparative index of country‐level corruption as a broad measure of cross‐cultural validity. G. S. Hofstede's cultural dimension indices are then used to explain these findings. The results indicate significant variance between cross‐cultural integrity test scores overall, and that this variance is significantly related to country levels of corruption (r=?.48), as well as Hofstede's power distance and collectivism dimensions, as hypothesized. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

It is nice to be important,but it is more important to be nice: Country‐of‐origin's perceived warmth in product failures

Although a large body of research has documented country‐of‐origin effects, very few works have inquired systematic differences in the content of national stereotypes that shape attitudes toward foreign products and their manufacturers. Drawing from the stereotype content model, the authors propose that the often ignored warmth dimension of the origin country is as important as (sometimes more important than) the well‐studied competence dimension in certain situations. As shown in two studies, perceived warmth of the origin country predicts purchase intention in normal situations as well as after product failure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Premigration ethnic and national identities: Jewish adolescents planning emigration from Russia and Ukraine to Israel

The ethnic and national identities of Jewish high‐school adolescents planning emigration from Russia and Ukraine to Israel were investigated about six months before their emigration. The national identities of adolescent emigrants (n = 243) were compared with those of non‐emigrant Russian and Ukrainian adolescents (n = 740). The emigrants’ attitude to their country of origin was less positive and their identification with Russians and Ukrainians was weaker as compared with the non‐emigrant adolescents. In addition, the attitude of the emigrants towards Israel was more positive than their attitude to Russia or Ukraine. Finally, the emigrants’ strongest identification was with the Jewish people, followed by identification with Israelis, while their weakest identification was with Russians and Ukrainians. Israeli and Jewish identities of the emigrant adolescents were positively correlated, and they were independent of the Russian and Ukrainian identities. Perceived discrimination was negatively correlated with the emigrants’ attitude to Russia or Ukraine, and it was positively correlated with the emigrants’ identification with Israelis and with the Jewish people. Jewish ethnicity was correlated with identification with Jewish people; however, it was not correlated with any component of the Israeli or Russian/Ukrainian identities. The study results indicate that in the premigration period emigrants form a multidimensional system of ethnic and national identities, which reflects their partial detachment from their homeland and affiliation with the country of provisional immigration. This premigration identity system may be termed “anticipatory” (cf. Merton, 1968), because it is not based on real contact with the country of provisional immigration, but rather on the emigrants’ expectations. On the other hand, the premigration identities are reactive, in the sense that they reflect the emigrants’ reaction to the perceived discrimination they experience in their country of origin. The results of the present study are discussed in light of social identity theory.     

The Religiosity of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross‐National Study

This study examines cross‐national differences in the religiosity of immigrants in Europe utilizing three different measures of religiosity: religious attendance, praying, and subjective religiosity. Hypotheses are formulated by drawing upon a variety of theories—scientific worldview, insecurity, religious markets, and social integration. The hypotheses are tested using European Social Survey data (2002–2008) from more than 10,000 first‐generation immigrants living in 27 receiving countries. Multilevel models show that, on the individual level, religiosity is higher among immigrants who are unemployed, less educated, and who have recently arrived in the host country. On the contextual level, the religiosity of natives positively affects immigrant religiosity. The models explain about 60 percent of the cross‐national differences in religious attendance and praying of immigrants and about 20 percent of the cross‐national differences in subjective religiosity.     

“Unpacking” the Identity‐to‐Politics Link: The Effects of Social Identification on Voting Among Muslim Immigrants in Western Europe

The identity‐to‐politics link assumes that individuals who share a certain demographic feature also share common political pursuits. This article critically examines that presumed relationship by analyzing how voting probability is affected by social identification in combination with other elements—namely, perception of shared grievances and group resources. Tallying responses from Muslim immigrants in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom via surveys conducted for the European research project EURISLAM, this study supports the assumption that social identification affects voting in specific circumstances. The results show that identifying with the origin country decreases voting probability among Muslim immigrants in Europe. Another finding was the context‐specific effect of social identification. That is, origin‐country identification's effect is contingent on an individual's perception of shared grievances and national identification; and origin country and religious identifications' effects are contingent on an individual's perception of shared grievances, national identification, and group differences.     

Consumer knowledge and use of country‐of‐origin information at the point of purchase

This paper reports an investigation of American and Canadian consumer acquisition and/or knowledge of the country of origin of products at the time of purchase. Consumer knowledge of the country of origin of purchased products was tested as purchasers left the cash register. If the purchaser knew the country of origin of the product just purchased, they were further questioned to discover the role such knowledge might have played in their choice between alternatives. More than 93 per cent of 1,248 purchasers intercepted at the cash register had not acquired while shopping, or did not know from prior experience, the country of origin of a product they had just purchased. Of the 91 (6.5 per cent) who had acquired or knew the country of origin of a product they had just purchased, only 27 (2.2 per cent of the total) indicated that their knowledge of the product's country of origin possibly might have played a role in their product choice. These findings reveal that the country of origin of products is not an important attribute in the choice processes of the great majority of North American consumers. Confirmation of these findings by replication with less obtrusive and more externally valid measures of consumer acquisition and use of product information prior to purchase is needed. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Measurement invariance of the Belief in a Zero‐Sum Game scale across 36 countries

In this paper, we examined the psychometric properties of cross‐cultural validation and replicability (i.e. measurement invariance) of the Belief in a Zero‐Sum Game (BZSG) scale, measuring antagonistic belief about interpersonal relations over scarce resources. The factorial structure of the BZSG scale was investigated in student samples from 36 countries (N = 9907), using separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) for each country. The cross‐cultural validation of the scale was based on multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA). The results confirmed that the scale had a one‐factor structure in all countries, in which configural and metric invariance between countries was confirmed. As a zero‐sum belief about social relations perceived as antagonistic, BZSG is an important factor related to, for example, social and international relations, attitudes toward immigrants, or well‐being. The paper proposes different uses of the BZSG scale for cross‐cultural studies in different fields of psychology: social, political, or economic.     

Does Generalized (Dis)Trust Travel? Examining the Impact of Cultural Heritage and Destination‐Country Environment on Trust of Immigrants

At least two contrasting perspectives on the roots of generalized trust exist: The cultural perspective emphasizing how trust is a stable trait passed on from one generation to the next through parental socialization, and the experiential perspective, which stresses that trust is subject to change with what we experience in the environment in which we live. Analyzing trust of immigrants is an effective way to contrast the two perspectives, as the cultural perspective predicts that immigrants' level of trust will continue to reflect the level of trust of their home country, whereas the experiential perspective predicts that trust of immigrants will change according to the environment of the destination country. This article examines how first‐generation immigrants from three low‐trust countries of origin (Turkey, Poland, and Italy) are affected by migrating to high‐trust countries in Northern Europe, which hold qualities conducive to trust. In contrast to earlier studies examining trust of immigrants, I build on one data set containing data on both migrants and nonmigrants from the same country of origin as well as on a wide range of relevant covariates of trust. Using the method of matching, the results of the analysis lend most support to the experiential perspective on trust as the destination‐country context has a massive impact on trust of immigrants, who display significantly higher levels of trust than comparable respondents in their country of origin. The results are robust to limiting the destination‐country context to only one country (Germany) and comparing migrants and nonmigrants responding in the same language.     

Country‐of‐Origin Influences on Product Evaluations: The Impact of Animosity and Perceptions of Industriousness Brutality on Judgments of Typical and Atypical Products

When a product's country of origin has a reputation for manufacturing high‐quality products, there may be a positive impact on product judgments. If people feel animosity toward a country as a result of its political or social policies, they may react negatively to the products it produces. These opposing effects may depend in part on the subset of country‐relevant knowledge that is accessible in memory at the time of judgment. When a product was not one on which Germany or Japan had built its reputation for manufacturing high‐quality products, associating the product with these countries increased its evaluations when industriousness had been activated as part of an unrelated experiment. However, when concepts associated with brutality had been primed, the product's country of origin had a negative effect on judgments. When the product was typical of those manufactured in the country, however, identifying its country of origin increased product evaluations regardless of whether industriousness or brutality had been primed. Thus, animosity toward a product's country of origin had an adverse effect on reactions to it only if the product was not one on which the country's reputation was based.     

Linking extreme response style to response processes: A cross‐cultural mixed methods approach

The aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of extreme response style in cross‐cultural research by integrating quantitative and qualitative evidence in a mixed methods design. In the quantitative phase, indexes of extreme response style, derived from quality of life measures from different international studies, were compared between Spain and the Netherlands. Results indicated that extreme responding was more common among Spanish than among Dutch in endorsement of items, but that the opposite was found for frequency scales including never as a response anchor. In the qualitative phase, cognitive interviews were conducted with 25 participants in each country. The integration of quantitative results and qualitative findings suggests that country differences in extreme response style may stem from various sources, including the more independent evaluation of each item by Dutch, the stronger connotations of never for Spanish and stronger emotions triggered by specific topics such as work satisfaction that was more strongly associated with insecurity for Spanish. It is concluded that the integration of quantitative and qualitative evidence can help to understand cross‐cultural similarities and differences in extreme response style.     

The relationship between different components of national identities and psychosocial adjustment among high-school adolescent immigrants from Russia and Ukraine in Israel

This study investigated the relationship between different components of national identities of immigrants (related to both the country of origin and host country), and psychosocial adjustment in pre-migration and post-migration periods. Adolescents who immigrated from Russia and Ukraine to Israel (N = 151) completed questionnaires at four time points: about six months prior to, and in the first, second, and third years after, immigration. At each point, adolescents were assessed on degree of identification they felt with the citizens of their country of origin and Israel and on their attitudes towards the two countries. Five indexes of psychosocial adjustment were measured: emotional and behavioural problems, self-esteem, social competence, school competence and loneliness. Adolescents' positive attitudes towards the host country were associated with higher psychosocial adjustment, both before and after immigration. Positive attitudes towards the country of origin were associated with higher psychosocial adjustment in the post-migration period. Degree of identification with either nation was not related to psychosocial adjustment. Findings suggest that it may not be identity per se that is the critical factor for adjustment for adolescent immigrants, but rather the extent to which they feel affirmation, pride and positive regard towards the two countries. For adolescent immigrants, idealization of origin and host countries may fulfil an important developmental role allowing them to de-idealize parental figures and create new objects of idealization.     

Hard times and European youth. The effect of economic insecurity on human values,social attitudes and well‐being

While economic downturns have adverse effects on young people's life chances, empirical studies examining whether and to what extent human values, social attitudes and well‐being indicators respond to sudden economic shocks are scarce. To assess the claim that human values are less affected by economic shocks than social attitudes and well‐being, two distinct yet related studies based on the European Social Survey (ESS) are conducted. The first employs a fixed effects pseudo‐panel analysis of the 2008–2014 ESS‐waves to detect whether changes over time in the socio‐demographic group's unemployment risk and national youth unemployment affect individual dispositions to varying degrees. The second study captures micro‐ and cross‐national effects in the 2010 ESS cross‐section. Unique for this set‐up is that we can test whether the findings hold for over‐time changes in youth unemployment within countries (pseudo‐panel), as well as for cross‐country differences in youth unemployment (multilevel). Both studies indicate that political trust, satisfaction with the economy and subjective well‐being are lowered by economic risk and hardship, while social trust and self‐rated health are less affected by changes in youth unemployment. Secondly, human values are immune to economic risk, underscoring that values transcend specific situations and are therefore resistant against sudden economic shocks.     

Sensuality and venality in Bangkok: The dynamics of cross‐cultural mapping of prostitution

The dynamics of cross‐cultural cognitive mapping is examined, from a Schuetzian perspective, on the example of the changing images formed by farangs (white foreigners) of Thai girls engaged in “open‐ended” tourist‐oriented prostitution, a vaguely‐defined, gray area lying between “full‐fledged prostitution” and “straight” sexuality. The newcomer farang, unable to grasp this culture‐specific category, initially tends to refuse to label the girls as “prostitutes,” but, with growing experience, tends to apply that label to them, without, however, thereby resetting the boundaries of his cognitive map. He thus fails to make the transition from strangeness to familiarity with the host culture, as conceived by Schuetz—since he continues to impose the crisp categorizations prevalent in his culture of origin, on a situation which is fuzzily conceived in different categories by the hosts. The case study exemplifies the difficulties of a cross‐cultural definition and identification of prostitution.     

Countering negative country of origin effects using imagery processing

A favorable product country of origin (e.g., an automobile made in Germany) is often considered an asset by marketers. Yet a challenge in today's competitive environment is how marketers of products from less favorably regarded countries can counter negative country of origin perceptions. Three studies investigate how mental imagery can be used to reduce the effects of negative country of origin stereotypes. Study 1 reveals that participants exposed to country of origin information exhibit automatic stereotype activation. Study 2 shows that self‐focused counterstereotypical mental imagery (relative to other‐focused mental imagery) significantly inhibits the automatic activation of negative country of origin stereotypes. Study 3 shows that this lessening of automatic negative associations persists when measured one day later. The results offer important implications for marketing theory and practice. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Facets of country image and brand equity: Revisiting the role of product categories in country‐of‐origin effect research

The country‐of‐origin effect is a topic central to the field of international marketing. Country of origin has been found to exert a particularly potent effect on consumer evaluation in situations where there is a strong link between a country and a particular product category. The present study provides further insight into how this particular effect can be understood. Drawing on a novel conceptualization of how country image and product categories interact, this study tested the relative evaluative relevance of product category with respect to estimates of brand equity across a variety of product categories. The findings suggest that facets of a country's image that are more closely related to the evaluation situation exert a greater influence on the evaluation of brands. This result encourages scholars as well as practitioners to re‐evaluate which situations might cause the country of origin effect to hold managerial relevance and paves the way for new paths toward a more comprehensive understanding of the effect. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparability of Self‐Reported Conscientiousness Across 21 Countries

In cross‐national studies, mean levels of self‐reported phenomena are often not congruent with more objective criteria. One prominent explanation for such findings is that people make self‐report judgements in relation to culture‐specific standards (often called the reference group effect), thereby undermining the cross‐cultural comparability of the judgements. We employed a simple method called anchoring vignettes in order to test whether people from 21 different countries have varying standards for Conscientiousness, a Big Five personality trait that has repeatedly shown unexpected nation‐level relationships with external criteria. Participants rated their own Conscientiousness and that of 30 hypothetical persons portrayed in short vignettes. The latter type of ratings was expected to reveal individual differences in standards of Conscientiousness. The vignettes were rated relatively similarly in all countries, suggesting no substantial culture‐related differences in standards for Conscientiousness. Controlling for the small differences in standards did not substantially change the rankings of countries on mean self‐ratings or the predictive validities of these rankings for objective criteria. These findings are not consistent with mean self‐rated Conscientiousness scores being influenced by culture‐specific standards. The technique of anchoring vignettes can be used in various types of studies to assess the potentially confounding effects of reference levels. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement equivalence in the conduct of a global organizational survey across countries in six cultural regions

This study examined the measurement equivalence of a global organizational survey measuring six work climate factors as administered across 25 countries (N = 31,315) in all regions of the world (West Europe, East Europe, North America, Latin America, South America, Middle East, Africa and Asia‐Pacific). Across all countries, the survey instrument exhibited ‘form equivalence’ and ‘metric equivalence’, suggesting that respondents completed the survey using the same frame‐of‐reference and interpreted the rating scale intervals similarly. Schwartz's (1994, 1999, 2004) cultural value theory was then used for grouping the countries in cultural regions, and to anticipate measurement equivalence of the data from the survey within and between these regions. Results showed partial support for Schwartz's theory. The English‐speaking region was the only region where empirical evidence for ‘scalar equivalence’ was found. No support was found for the prediction that measurement equivalence would be higher among countries that are part of cultural regions with a small cultural distance than among countries that are part of cultural regions with a large cultural distance. However, the use of a common language in a particular cultural region reduced the bias present in the cross‐country comparison within that region.     

Predicting consumer satisfaction from CD players

This paper explores the relationship between expectations and product satisfaction evaluations in a high‐involvement product category. While doing so, the paper attempts to develop a regression model to predict the overall level of consumer satisfaction derived from CD players, using a number of explanatory variables within an ordinary least squares framework. This regression model links overall satisfaction to confidence in other people's opinions, expectations of product quality, experience with product quality, replacement rate and the importance of price. The model predicts fairly well for cross‐sectional data, with an adjusted R² of 57 per cent, and appears to be robust. Finally, the implications of these results for marketers are discussed. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.