A study of the relationship between degree of ethnocentrism and typologies of food purchase in supermarkets in central-southern Chile

Abstract

The objective of this study was to distinguish different types of consumers according to their level of ethnocentrism in relation to the consumption of foodstuffs in central-southern Chile. To do this a modification of the CETSCALE (Consumer Ethnocentric Tendencies Scale) was applied through direct survey of 800 habitual supermarket shoppers in two cities in central-southern Chile. The modified CETSCALE presented a sufficient level of internal consistency and there were three factors which included the 17 items of the scale. Five typologies of consumer with different degrees of ethnocentrism were distinguished by cluster analysis, based on the values of the factors and items in the CETSCALE. The composition of the typologies of consumers were related to the city and zone of residence, age, socioeconomic level, self-declared life-style, ethnic origin, knowledge of the origin of the foodstuffs purchased, frequency of purchase of imported foodstuffs and reasons for rejection in the case of a low purchase frequency. It may therefore be concluded that different levels of ethnocentrism exist in the consumption of foodstuffs, related with some socio-demographic characteristics of consumers and their attitudes to imported foodstuffs.