An Enemy Within - Intra-Country Consumer Animosity

Animosity is an important factor in understanding consumers’ product preference and buying decisions. In its broad form, it refers to the impact of negative feelings caused by military, economic, religious and political tensions on product attitudes, judgements, and choice. Consumer animosity was originally proposed as an international marketing concept; however, it has been recently extended to help explain consumer behavior in an intra-country context (Shimp et al. 2004; Hinck 2004; Shoham et al. 2006; Little et al. 2014). In the current literature intra- country animosity is largely viewed as an extension of international animosity and little theoretical support is provided for consumer animosity within one country (Shimp et al. 2004). The purpose of this research is threefold. First, drawing on the social identity theory (Tajfel 1969, 1970, 1981; Hornsey 2008) this paper seeks to offer the theoretical backing for intra-country consumer animosity as a distinct concept that has several significant differences compared to its intercountry counterpart. Second, by bridging the gap between consumer animosity theory of international marketing, anti-consumption literature in consumer research, and relevant in-group/out-group psychological research, this paper provides a more holistic view of consumer animosity. Finally, this paper opens a lucrative area for future research to help further establish and refine the concept of intra-country consumer animosity.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/business_strome/1004/thumbnail.jp