Consumer Ethnocentrism of Psychology Students

Jelena Lj. Mini, Miljana S. Pavievi, Biljana, N. Jaredi

Department for Psychology, the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Pritina Kosovska
Mitrovica
Consumer ethnocentrism is an important concept in marketing, by which it is
determined the tendency or direction of some country population toward the purchase of
domestic products, bearing in mind the belief that buying of domestic products can have
the impact on the economic progress of the country, and first of all, unemployment. The
main goal of the research was to determine the prominence of consumer ethnocentrism
with psychology students. One of the goals was to research whether there is the
connection of consumer ethnocentrism of psychology students with the following:
national identity, self-esteem, and some socio-demographic variables (age, material wellbeing of the family, and educational level of parents). By doing this research, we tried to
determine whether there are differences in the prominence of consumer ethnocentrism
with psychology students regarding sex and permanent residence (Kosovo and Metohia,
and narrow area of Serbia). The research sample was appropriate and was made of
psychology students of all four years of studies (n=233; 88, 3 respondents of female
sex, and 11, 7 respondents of male sex) in the life span from 19 to 24 years (M=21, 46;
SD=1, 09), with permanent residence in the territory of Kosovo and Metohia (149 of
them), and narrow area of Serbia (74 of them). The following instruments were being
used: The Scale of Consumer Ethnocentrism (Shimp & Sharma, 1987); The Scale of
National Identity (orkalo & Kamenov, 1998); The Scale of Self-esteem (Rosenberg,
1965), and Questionnaire of Basic Data. The data were being processed by Descriptive
Statistics, Pierson's Coefficient of Correlation, and t-test (Lavanov Test was being used
due to great difference in the sub-sample size).
The research result shows the respondents have got lower level of consumer
ethnocentrism (min. 17; max. 106. M=50, 47; SD=14, 05) which inclines us to the
conclusion the respondents more scarcely choose domestic products, and more frequently
the foreign ones during the purchase. A high positive correlation of the consumer
ethnocentrism, and national identity was obtained (p=.466; p<0.01), which means
students with higher national identity have got more prominent consumer ethnocentrism,
and vice versa. Positive correlation of consumer ethnocentrism and national identity is
expected, and in accordance with earlier researches. Correlations of consumer
ethnocentrism with age, material well-being of the family, educational level of parents are
not important from statistical point of view, although the results of earlier researches
show that there are statistically significant correlations. Statistically significant
differences were obtained in the prominence of consumer ethnocentrism regarding
permanent residence of the respondents (t=2,80; Sig.=.006), more precisely, students
having permanent residence in the territory of Kosovo and Metohia have got more
prominent consumer ethnocentrism regarding students living in the territory of Serbia.
Statistically significant differences in the prominence of consumer ethnocentrism
regarding the sex of the respondents were not obtained, although earlier researches show
that differences concerning sex do exist. The data are partly in accordance with
suppositions, and results of the earlier researches.
Key words: consumer ethnocentrism, psychology students.