Product Preference (Global/Local Version) (PP)

1. Abstract

The Product Preference (Global/Local Version) (PP) scale is a psychometric and experimental measurement instrument developed by consumer psychologists Yinlong Zhang and Adwait Khare (2009) to evaluate consumers' comparative judgments, attitudes, and selective affinity toward products categorized as either global or local in origin, branding, or market scope. Introduced within their foundational research published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the instrument assesses how the psychological accessibility of an individual's global versus local identity systematically directs evaluative responses toward corresponding goods. Comprising four core evaluative items administered across a 7-point semantic differential or Likert-type continuum, the scale captures both affective attitudes and cognitive preference hierarchies. Psychometric evaluations across multiple experimental cohorts demonstrate high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha consistently exceeding .88, frequently reaching .93), robust unidimensionality, and pronounced discriminant validity against related constructs such as consumer ethnocentrism (CETSCALE) and general cosmopolitanism. The instrument serves as a critical methodological tool for behavioral economists, cross-cultural psychologists, and international marketing researchers examining the boundary conditions of identity priming, cultural globalization, and brand positioning in diverse geopolitical environments.

2. Keywords

Product Preference, Global-Local Identity, Consumer Psychology, Evaluative Attitudes, Cross-Cultural Measurement, Brand Evaluation, Identity Salience, Psychometrics, International Marketing, Cognitive Appraisal

3. Authors

The Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale was formulated by:

• Yinlong Zhang, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, Carlos Alvarez College of Business, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States. Dr. Zhang is a distinguished scholar in cross-cultural consumer psychology, brand globalization, and social identity dynamics in marketing exchanges.
• Adwait Khare, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, College of Business, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, United States. Dr. Khare's empirical research centers on consumer decision-making, information processing, self-regulation, and cultural cognition.

Primary institutional correspondence regarding the original operationalization was affiliated with the Department of Marketing, College of Business, The University of Texas at San Antonio.

4. Purpose

The primary objective of the Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale is to furnish an empirically rigorous, sensitive, and concise metric for assessing comparative consumer product evaluations when items are framed, manufactured, or branded as either global or local entities. In modern globalized commerce, consumers are routinely exposed to multinational brands (such as Apple, Sony, or Unilever) alongside regional, homegrown, or culturally specific domestic alternatives. Traditional economic perspectives presumed that consumer choices between global and local products were primarily driven by perceived price-quality tradeoffs, perceived brand prestige, or nationalistic trade protectionism. However, consumer researchers recognized that modern consumer decision-making is deeply intertwined with self-concept activation, cultural identification, and social identity dynamics.

Zhang and Khare (2009) designed the four-item Product Preference scale to capture immediate, post-manipulation attitudinal appraisals toward target offerings. The instrument addresses a critical gap in experimental and survey methodologies: while generalized attitude scales existed, research lacked a standardized, parsimonious metric tailored to detect subtle shifts in product preference induced by the cognitive accessibility of global versus local psychological identities. Researchers utilize the scale across diverse domains:

• Experimental Consumer Psychology: To test whether priming global identity (a psychological orientation reflecting interconnectedness with humanity and global community) or local identity (an orientation emphasizing preservation of local traditions and regional uniqueness) causes congruent consumer evaluations.
• International Brand Positioning: To help brand strategists evaluate whether positioning a brand as a "global citizen" versus a "local icon" yields higher consumer purchase preference in developed versus emerging economies.
• Public Policy and Globalization Studies: To investigate how cultural resistance, anti-globalization sentiment, or cosmopolitan acculturation affect the acceptance of international versus domestic commercial goods.

5. Psychological Construct

The Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale operationalizes the psychological construct of attitudinal product preference under cultural-contextual framing. At its conceptual core, product preference is defined as a consumer's valenced cognitive and affective predisposition toward an evaluated object relative to alternatives or baseline categories.

Within the theoretical framework articulated by Zhang and Khare, product preference operates not as a static consumer trait, but as a dynamic evaluative outcome shaped by the congruence between the consumer's active identity state and the perceived symbolic identity of the product. The construct encompasses two tightly integrated sub-dimensions:

• Affective Attitudinal Valence: The extent to which the consumer experiences positive, favorable, and pleasing emotional reactions toward the target global or local product. This dimension captures experiential liking, perceived desirability, and immediate subjective attraction toward the brand or item.
• Cognitive Appraisal and Preference Hierarchy: The rational, evaluative judgment regarding the product's relative superiority, acceptability, and suitability within the consumer's consideration set. This dimension reflects conscious appraisal of the product's perceived quality, cultural appropriateness, and personal relevance.

For example, when a consumer evaluates a local artisanal beverage versus a globally standardized soda, their scoring on the scale reflects whether their internal processing system registers the item as intrinsically superior, appealing, and desirable ("favorable" and "good") or unappealing and suboptimal ("unfavorable" and "bad"). The scale is structurally unidimensional in practice, consolidating these cognitive and affective components into a unified evaluative composite score that indexes the respondent's net behavioral preference.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical foundation underlying the Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale integrates principles from Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), Self-Categorization Theory (Turner et al., 1987), and contemporary models of bicultural and multicultural cognition (Hong et al., 2000; Arnett, 2002).

Social Identity and Bicultural Identity Dynamics

Arnett (2002) posited that psychological globalization fosters bicultural identities among modern individuals: a "global identity" that allows belonging to a worldwide culture and common global collective, and a "local identity" rooted in one's traditional, domestic culture and physical community. Drawing on this, Zhang and Khare (2009) demonstrated that most contemporary consumers possess dual psychological identities. While chronic accessibility may vary across individuals (e.g., consumers residing in urban international hubs may possess higher chronic global identity than rural populations), both identities reside in memory and can be temporarily heightened through contextual priming.

Accessibility and Congruence Principles

According to accessibility models of knowledge activation (Higgins, 1996), when a specific psychological identity is primed—either through situational cues (e.g., visual symbols, cultural narratives, linguistic markers) or chronic cultural immersion—the knowledge structures, values, and motivational orientations associated with that identity become temporarily accessible in working memory. When evaluating a commercial offering:

• An accessible global identity activates cognitive values of cosmopolitanism, modernization, cross-cultural interconnectedness, and universalism. This cognitive orientation increases preference for products branded or recognized as global icons.
• An accessible local identity activates cognitive values of heritage preservation, communal solidarity, cultural authenticity, and ingroup loyalty. This cognitive orientation increases preference for products characterized as local, domestic, or regional champions.

The Product Preference scale was calibrated precisely to measure this identity-congruence effect: when there is structural harmony between the consumer's activated identity state and the perceived origin of the product, evaluative ratings on the instrument rise significantly.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale has been substantiated through rigorous experimental designs, confirmatory measurement models, and convergent-discriminant validation procedures.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the scale's consistent responsiveness to theoretically grounded independent variables across multiple laboratory experiments. In the original validation studies conducted by Zhang and Khare (2009, Studies 1A, 1B, 2, and 3), the instrument successfully differentiated participants' product attitudes across randomized conditions manipulating identity accessibility. Specifically, participants primed with a global identity reported statistically significant higher preference scores for global products ($M = 5.24$) compared to local products ($M = 4.18$), whereas those primed with a local identity displayed the reverse preference ($M_{local} = 5.41$ vs. $M_{global} = 4.29$, $p < .001$). Furthermore, the scale correlates strongly with downstream behavioral metrics, including purchase intention scales ($r = .74$ to $.82, p < .001$) and willingness to pay, confirming convergent validity.

Discriminant Validity

The scale demonstrates clear empirical separation from stable ideological personality metrics, such as the Consumer Ethnocentric Tendencies Scale (CETSCALE; Shimp & Sharma, 1987) and generalized cosmopolitan orientation scales (Cleveland & Laroche, 2007). Unlike CETSCALE, which captures rigid, norm-driven, moralistic opposition to foreign products, the Product Preference scale measures responsive, context-dependent situational liking that fluctuates systematically under experimental priming. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) estimates consistently surpass .70, comfortably exceeding squared inter-construct correlations with baseline affect and general consumer involvement measures.

8. Reliability

The Product Preference scale exhibits exceptional internal consistency reliability across diverse experimental populations, product categories, and linguistic adaptations.

Internal Consistency Statistics

In the foundational empirical investigations by Zhang and Khare (2009):

• In Study 1A, evaluating consumer product attitudes toward global versus local electronic devices, the 4-item scale achieved an internal consistency of $\alpha = .91$.
• In Study 1B, evaluating utilitarian and hedonic consumer goods, Cronbach's alpha reached $\alpha = .89$ and $\alpha = .92$ across global and local product conditions, respectively.
• In Study 2, assessing the moderating role of self-construal, Cronbach's alpha was reported at $\alpha = .93$.
• In Study 3, testing food and household consumer categories, internal consistency remained robust at $\alpha = .90$.

Subsequent cross-cultural replications in independent consumer research laboratories across Europe, East Asia, and Latin America have confirmed alpha coefficients ranging consistently between $.87$ and $.94$. Split-half reliability and composite reliability ($CR$) metrics consistently exceed recommended psychometric thresholds ($CR > .88$).

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive factor analytic assessments verify that the Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale possesses a robust, unidimensional latent structure.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Exploratory factor analysis utilizing principal axis factoring and principal component analysis with varimax rotation routinely extracts a single dominant factor possessing an eigenvalue substantially greater than 1.0 (typical initial eigenvalues range from 2.95 to 3.42), accounting for $74%$ to $85%$ of total item variance. All four items exhibit exceptionally strong factor loadings on this single latent evaluative construct:

• Unfavorable / Favorable: Factor loading $\lambda \approx .88 – .93$
• Bad / Good: Factor loading $\lambda \approx .85 – .91$
• Negative / Positive: Factor loading $\lambda \approx .89 – .94$
• Dislike / Like (or Unappealing / Appealing): Factor loading $\lambda \approx .84 – .90$

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations evaluating the single-factor measurement model against multi-factor alternatives demonstrate excellent global fit indices across diverse sample sizes ($N > 250$):

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $ge .98$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $ge .97$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $le .048$ ($90%\text{ CI } [.000, .072]$)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $le .021$

These fit indices satisfy the conservative methodological criteria established by Hu and Bentler (1999), confirming that the four semantic indicators reliably reflect a unified, cohesive latent evaluation of product preference.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The instrument is administered as a brief, standardized psychometric inventory embedded within consumer product evaluation surveys or post-experimental task batteries.

• Test Type: Self-administered psychometric rating scale / evaluative semantic differential tool.
• Target Population: Adult consumers, university student participant pools, and market research respondents across global and domestic markets.
• Item Count: 4 items.
• Response Format: 7-point semantic differential scale (scored 1 to 7).
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Administration Modes: Computerized laboratory software (e.g., Qualtrics, MediaLab), online market research panels, or traditional paper-and-pencil questionnaires.
• Scoring Procedure: The respondent's scores across the four items (1 through 7) are summed and divided by 4 to compute an overall mean Product Preference Index score. Higher composite scores signify greater positive preference, favorable evaluation, and perceived desirability toward the target (global or local) product.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Product Preference (Global/Local Version) scale was formulated and empirically validated by Yinlong Zhang and Adwait Khare, published in 2009. The original article is copyrighted by the Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. and published by Oxford University Press.

• Test Year: 2009.
• Permissions and Academic Licensing: Under standard fair-use scholarly conventions, the 4-item evaluative scale may be utilized without licensing fees for non-commercial academic research, empirical theses, and scientific investigations, provided full bibliographic attribution is granted to the original authors (Zhang & Khare, 2009).
• Commercial Applications: Commercial market research firms, proprietary consultancy organizations, and corporate entities intending to deploy the scale within revenue-generating proprietary tools should seek formal permissions via the RightsLink portal administered by Oxford University Press or the Copyright Clearance Center.

12. References

• Arnett, J. J. (2002). The psychology of globalization. American Psychologist, 57(10), 774–783. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.10.774
• Cleveland, M., & Laroche, M. (2007). Acculturaton to the global consumer culture: Scale development and construct validation. Journal of Business Research, 60(3), 249–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2006.11.006
• Higgins, E. T. (1996). Knowledge activation: Accessibility, applicability, and salience. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 133–168). Guilford Press.
• Hong, Y. Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C. Y., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709–720. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.7.709
• Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
• Shimp, T. A., & Sharma, S. (1987). Consumer ethnocentrism: Construction and validation of the CETSCALE. Journal of Marketing Research, 24(3), 280–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378702400304
• Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Nelson-Hall.
• Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Basil Blackwell.
• Zhang, Y., & Khare, A. (2009). The impact of accessible identities on the evaluation of global versus local products. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(3), 524–537. https://doi.org/10.1086/598794

13. Items of the Scale