An explorative study : how existential anxiety influences our preference for local brands

Abstract

Past literatures (Friese & Hofmann, 2008; Marchlewski & Fetchenhauer, 2006) found support on the relationship between mortality salience (MS) on consumer ethnocentrism. However, little research had been done on the mediating factors between these constructs. Therefore, mediation analysis is utilized to examine whether materialism, social identification and patriotism are the possible variables that mediate the relationship between MS and consumer ethnocentrism. The participants were 40 Singaporean undergraduates from Nanyang Technological University. They were assigned randomly to either mortality salient condition or control condition. Consumer ethnocentrism was predicted to be related to MS, however, mediation analyses did not support this. This study failed to establish the mediation effect of materialism, social identification and patriotism between MS and consumer ethnocentrism. The limitations that might confound the results of this study are discussed and possible improvement for future studies are proposed.