Consumption Expressions of Ideological Resistance

Purpose – The paper focuses on resistance driven by animosity toward a country due to cultural, political, military and economic reasons. Previous research has linked animosity toward a given country to explicit judgments and purchases of products from that country, thus ignoring the possibility that latent ideological beliefs may reveal themselves behaviorally more subtly. This research focuses on implicit consumption expressions of country-based consumption resistance. Design/methodology/approach – Cross-sectional survey data were collected from French movie goers in seemingly unrelated studies. In study one, respondents reported the movies they had watched at a movie theater over the past month and these movies were subsequently coded by country of origin. Animosity, ethnocentrism, and global openness were measured in study two. Finally, participants selected lottery tickets for either a French or foreign movie. This choice measure captures whether ethnocentric consumption tendencies emerge after animosity is made salient. Findings – Ideological resistance to the US expresses itself in the anti-consumption of US movies.Further, when animosity toward the US is made salient, high animosity French respondents express an increased preference for domestic consumption choices, even though they are not generally ethnocentric. Originality/value – The focus on actual consumption data provides an externally valid test of both latent and explicit expressions of ideological resistance to a country in the form of consumption choices