The Impact of a Social Desirability Bias on Consumer Ethnocentrism Research: A Cross-National Perspective

Consumers in the global marketplace are becoming more sensitive to their cultural and ethnic identities resulting in increasing levels of nationalism around the world. One of the ways in which these individuals manifest this nationalism is through consumer ethnocentrism. Therefore, the ability to accurately measure levels of cross-national consumer ethnocentrism becomes an important concern for both academic researchers and marketing practitioners. At the same time different factors may intervene to prevent accurate assessment of consumer ethnocentrism. This paper proposes that one of these factors is a social desirability bias. Utilizing cross-national samples, this study explores the relationship between the measurement of consumer ethnocentrism and social desirability bias.