Can Social Identity Theory Addresses the Ethnocentric Tendencies of Consumers?

This paper investigates two issues of consumer psychology. First part of the paper assesses the applicability of “consumer ethnocentric tendencies scale (CETSCALE)” for a developing country Bangladesh to challenge the orthodox belief that consumer ethnocentrism is a phenomenon of developed nations only. With statistically significant results, the study shows that 13 out of 17 items of original CETSCALE are applicable for Bangladesh which validates that CETSCALE can be a research instrument for developing nations. In the second part, based on the modified CETSCALE items, this paper investigates the applicability of “social identity theory” in addressing ethnocentric tendencies of different socio-demographic groups of consumers in Bangladesh. Results show that even if all 13 items of modified CETSCALE were supported by the surveyed population as a whole, the opinions on the scale items differ when the consumers are segregated into smaller social identities. And this deviation is due to their “in-group” interests which supports the applicability of the social identity theory in the present context. The methodology is based on 788 samples collected from 22 districts of Bangladesh.