Consumer Ethnocentrism as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Ostracism and Self-esteem

When and why self-esteem drops down after an ostracism experience are worthy questions to answer in the field of ostracism. Considering the growing national pride in China, the current study investigates whether consumer ethnocentrism, a personality trait highly correlated with national pride in the consumer market, moderates the effects of ostracism on self-esteem through a large-scale survey (n = 1200). Confirmative factor analyses and moderation regression analyses are conducted to test the hypothesis. The results show that: 1. Consistent with previous studies, ostracism negatively correlates with self-esteem. 2. Consumer ethnocentrism positively moderates ostracism's effects on self-esteem, such that individuals with high consumer ethnocentrism have a significant drop in self-esteem after ostracism. Potential explanations of the moderating effect of consumer ethnocentrism, implications and limitations of the current study, and direction for further studies are discussed.