Consumer Xenocentrism and “Irrational” Consumer Behavior

We employ an experimental design to investigate whether the bias associated with consumer xenocentrism can “blind” consumers to such an extent that they fail to see the virtues of domestic products even when the latter objectively outperform their foreign counterparts. We also link consumers’ ability to identify the superior product to their subsequent (domestic vs. foreign) product preferences. Our findings show that xenocentric consumers may indeed exhibit “irrational” behavior as reflected in suboptimal product choices. Implications for theory and practice are considered and future research directions identified.