Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale

What it measures

Measures consumers' beliefs about the appropriateness and morality of purchasing foreign-made products. High ethnocentrism reflects a belief that buying imported products is wrong because it hurts the domestic economy and is unpatriotic. The CETSCALE is foundational to research on country-of-origin effects, global brand strategy, and nationalism in consumer behaviour.

Response format

Likert (1–7, strongly disagree to strongly agree)

Scale items

• American people should always buy American-made products instead of imports.
• Only those products that are unavailable in the USA should be imported.
• Buy American-made products. Keep America working.
• American products, first, last, and foremost.
• Purchasing foreign-made products is un-American.
• It is not right to purchase foreign products, because it puts Americans out of jobs.
• A real American should always buy American-made products.
• We should purchase products manufactured in America instead of letting other countries get rich off us.
• It is always best to purchase American products.
• There should be very little trading or purchasing of goods from other countries unless out of necessity.
• Americans should not buy foreign products because this hurts American business and causes unemployment.
• Curbs should be put on all imports.
• It may cost me in the long run but I prefer to support American products.
• Foreigners should not be allowed to put their products on our markets.
• Foreign products should be taxed heavily to reduce their entry into the USA.
• We should buy from foreign countries only those products that we cannot obtain within our own country.
• American consumers who purchase products made in other countries are responsible for putting their fellow Americans out of work.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Score = mean. Higher = greater ethnocentrism. Adapt items to the relevant country. Highly ethnocentric consumers evaluate domestic products more favourably and foreign products less favourably regardless of objective quality. Important moderator in global brand and country-of-origin research. The 10-item CETSCALE is a widely used shorter version.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Shimp, T.A., & Sharma, S. (1987). Consumer ethnocentrism: Construction and validation of the CETSCALE. Journal of Marketing Research, 24(3), 280–289.

Keywords