Xenocentrism

{{Short description|Preference for the cultural practices of societies other than one's own}}

Xenocentrism is the preference for the cultural practices of other cultures and societies, such as how they live and what they eat, rather than of one's own social way of life.{{citation | last=Johnson | first=Allan G. | year=2000 | title=The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology: A User's Guide to Sociological Language | edition=2 | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | isbn=978-0-631-21681-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V1kiW7x6J1MC&pg=PA351 | page=351 }} One example is the romanticization of the noble savage in the 18th-century primitivism movement in European art, philosophy and ethnography.{{Cite book | jstor=10.1525/j.ctt1pprf8| title=The Myth of the Noble Savage| last1=Ellingson| first1=Ter| year=2001| isbn=9780520222687| publisher=University of California Press}} Xenocentrism can be a type of ethnocentrism. Because ethnocentrism is often negative and characterized by perceived superiority of one's own society to others, it often contrasts with xenocentrism.{{cite book|last1=LeVine|first1=R. A.|chapter=Ethnocentrism|journal=International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences|date=2001|pages=4852–4854|doi=10.1016/b0-08-043076-7/00857-3|isbn=9780080430768}}{{cite journal|last1=Kent|first1=Donald P.|last2=Burnight|first2=Robert G.|title=Group Centrism in Complex Societies|journal=American Journal of Sociology|date=1951|volume=57|issue=3|pages=256–259|jstor=2771646|doi=10.1086/220943|s2cid=143569339}}

Etymology

The term xenocentrism was coined by American sociologists Donald P. Kent and Robert G. Burnight in the 1952 paper "Group Centrism in Complex Societies" published in the American Journal of Sociology.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/sociologyofscien0000mert |url-access=registration |quote=Xenocentrism. |title=The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations |publisher=University of Chicago Press |first=Robert K. |last=Merton |year= 1973|page=[https://archive.org/details/sociologyofscien0000mert/page/108 108] |access-date=December 28, 2014|isbn=9780226520926 }} Kent and Burnight state that feelings of xenocentrism are caused by three possible factors; individuals who have familial ties to a foreign country, specifically 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants, those who oppose the political choices of their native country. One example of this is the Communist Party USA. The party idealized the Soviet Union and its anti-capitalist government. As well as individuals who are exposed to other cultures and grow disenchanted with their society, and then rebel against it. This word remained obscure but considered useful and occasionally used by other sociologists. The University of Florida treats it as a key term of Sociology.{{cite web|url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00014168/00001|title=Introduction to Sociology|access-date=17 June 2015}}

The term is opposed to ethnocentrism, as coined by 19th-century American sociologist William Graham Sumner, which describes the natural tendencies of an individual to place disproportionate worth upon the values and beliefs of one's own culture relative to others.

Examples

= Consumer xenocentrism =

Rene Dentiste Mueller and Amanda Broderick{{cite web|author-link2=Amanda Broderick|last1=Mueller|first1=Rene Dentiste|last2=Broderick|first2=Amanda J|title=Consumer Xenocentrism: An Alternative Explanation for Foreign Product Bias|year=2009|url=https://www.scribd.com/document/176866526/501-Mueller-R-Broderick-AConsumer-Xenocentrism-An-Alternative-Explanation-for-Foreign-Product-Bias}} Working paper, University of Charleston. were the first to apply the consumer xenocentrism (CX) concept to describe the preference that some consumers have for foreign goods, even when domestic goods are qualitatively and/or functionally similar or better. Although the CX phenomenon is global, the researchers cite a significant number of studies that suggests there are proportionally more consumer xenocentrics in former colonies where the locals have been conditioned to perceive ‘foreign’ as better. A consequence of consumer xenocentrism is its negative effect on local industry and on the decline in living standards as poor consumers buy the (often) more expensive foreign products. Consumer xenocentrism, especially among the local elites, reduces confidence and pride in local manufacturing which can lead to the loss of local industries, a decline in purchase choices, especially among traditional products or even a dependency on foreign ones. Mueller, Wang, Liu and Cui,{{cite journal|last1=Mueller|first1=Rene Dentiste|last2=Wan|first2=George Xun|last3=Liu|first3=Gouli|last4=Cui|first4=Charles Cui|title=Consumer Xenocentrism in China: An Exploratory Study|journal=Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics|date=2016|volume=28|issue=1|pages=73–91|doi=10.1108/apjml-11-2014-0158}} applied the concept to China and showed consumer xenocentrism is not a new phenomenon. The researchers were also able to show that when consumer xenocentrism grew too much, a ‘protection of the herd’ mentality caused the pendulum to swing back towards consumer ethnocentrism (nationalism).

In his doctoral dissertation, Steven James Lawrence suggests xenocentrism may be influential in making consumers buying decisions as they might have "favorable orientations to products from outside their membership group."{{cite journal|url=http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/606/|title=Consumer Xenocentrism And Consumer Cosmopolitanism: The De-Velopment And Validation Of Scales Of Constructs Influencing Attitudes Towards Foreign Product Consumption|journal=Wayne State University Dissertations|access-date=17 June 2015|date=January 2012|last1=Lawrence|first1=Steven}}

Puja Mondal cited some examples from India: "People in India often assume that British lifestyle (dress pattern, etc.), French fashion or Japanese electronic devices (TV, tape recorders, mobile set, washing machines, etc.) and Swiss watches are superior to their own."{{cite web|url=http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/culture-sociology/sociology-of-culture-concepts-involved-in-sociology-of-culture/31263/|title=Sociology of Culture: Concepts Involved in Sociology of Culture|access-date=17 June 2015|date=2014-03-25}}

Grace Susetyo suggests "the idea that foreign cultures and their elements are superior to the local" causes a crisis of cultural identity among Western-educated Indonesians and is a problem that needs to be eradicated.{{cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/3576228|title=Perception of Xenocentrism and Cultural Identity in Western-Educated Indonesian Teenage Music Students|first=Grace |last=Susetyo|access-date=17 June 2015}}

George Balabanis and Adamantios Diamantopoulos further defined consumer xenocentrism to be a multi-dimensional construct by which to explain consumer affinities for foreign products.{{Cite journal | doi=10.1509/jim.15.0138 |title = Consumer Xenocentrism as Determinant of Foreign Product Preference: A System Justification Perspective|journal = Journal of International Marketing|volume = 24|issue = 3|pages = 58–77|year = 2016|last1 = Balabanis|first1 = George|last2 = Diamantopoulos|first2 = Adamantios|s2cid = 148057267| url=https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/16330/1/Consumer%20Xenocentrism%20as.pdf }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20170328022546/https://www.ama.org/publications/JournalOfInternationalMarketing/Pages/consumer-xenocentrism-as-determinant-of-foreign-product-preference.aspx Article snapshot] They define consumer xenocentrism to be rooted in two concepts, perceived inferiority of domestic goods and aggrandized perception of foreign products.

The Academy of International Business is studying "out of group favoritism and in-group derogation" as a consumer effect in the Chinese consumer market.[https://aib.msu.edu/events/2006/AIB2006_Proceedings.pdf Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business (2006)] p.254

=Measurement of consumer xenocentrism=

Lawrence uses the definition of xenocentrism, conceived by Kent and Burnight, to propose a scale, CXENO, to predict how xenocentric views of non-domestic goods affects consumer behavior. The most recently proposed scale to quantity xenocentric consumer tendencies, XSCALE, includes both instances of social and consumer xenocentrism.{{cite book|last1=Rojas-Méndez|first1=José I.|last2=Chapa|first2=Sindy|title=Rescuing Xenocentrism: The Missing Construct in Consumer Behavior—An Abstract|journal=Creating Marketing Magic and Innovative Future Marketing Trends|date=2017|pages=1089|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-45596-9_200|publisher=Springer, Cham|language=en|series=Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science|isbn=978-3-319-45595-2|s2cid=151626305 }}

Economists have begun to include consumer xenocentrism, along with other consumer centrisms such as consumer ethnocentrism and consumer cosmopolitanism, in their analysis of consumer behavior.{{cite journal|last2=Davies|first2=Mark A.P.|last3=Cleveland|first3=Mark|last4=Palihawadana|first4=Dayananda|title=Here, there and everywhere: a study of consumer centrism|journal=International Marketing Review|volume=33|issue=5|pages=715–754|doi=10.1108/imr-06-2014-0205|last1=Prince|first1=Melvin|year=2016|url=http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/102143/14/Here%20There%20and%20Everywhere%2010-14.pdf}} Most recent research has looked at how these three centrisms impact one another.

Xenocentrism

Etymology

Examples

= Consumer xenocentrism =

=Measurement of consumer xenocentrism=

See also

References

Further reading