Cultural Identity Salience As a Catalyst of Consumer Resistance

This research studies the conditions under which cultural identity serves as a catalyst of resistance by activating animosity feelings that in turn affect consumers’ choices. Two catalysts of animosity were explored: a scenario explicitly manipulating animosity toward another country and a cultural salience prompt designed to implicitly activate animosity via cultural identity. Both manipulations yielded a similar pattern of choice and thus support the proposition that making salient a culturally threatening identity can activate latent animosity feelings and trigger cultural resistance, in the form of increased preference for domestic offerings.

Citation:

Dale Russell and Cristel Russell (2007) ,"Cultural Identity Salience As a Catalyst of Consumer Resistance", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 34, eds. Gavan Fitzsimons and Vicki Morwitz, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 147-162.