Consumers' Processing Mindset As a Moderator of the Effect of Country-of-Origin Product Stereotype

Abstract

In 2 studies we investigated the relationship between consumers' processing mindset and the effect of a stereotype about developing countries as the country of origin (COO) of a product. Participants were 61 Chinese undergraduate students in Study 1 and 104 Chinese undergraduate students in Study 2. We found (Study 1) that, relative to a global processing mindset, inducing a local processing mindset effectively decreased negative effects of COO associated with a product made in a developing country. However, we found (Study 2) that the ethnicity of a product made in a developed country interacted with processing mindset. When the participants' perception of the ethnicity of the product was favorable (e.g., a Swiss watch), those participants who were utilizing a global processing mindset were less likely to have a negative perception about COO than were those who were utilizing a local processing mindset. These findings show an effective way of weakening negative COO effect of developing countries in different conditions.