In a globalizing world, characterized by increasing diversity and exposure to other societies, understanding individuals’ orientations towards cultural outgroups has both theoretical and practical relevance. When cultural boundaries blur, individuals are afforded the opportunity to reshape their identity and affiliate themselves with multiple groups. However, globalization may also cause value conflict and moral confusion as people face ideas that challenge pre-existing notions. Globalization is therefore intertwined with psychology. Whereas (consumer) ethnocentrism and other exclusionary reactions (animosity, nationalism, xenophobia, etc.) have been the subject of innumerable studies, inclusionary constructs such as cosmopolitanism and particularly, xenocentrism, have only recently gained traction. Cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism denote distinct individual orientations towards cultural outgroups. The former considers an individual’s openness to cultural diversity and ability to navigate through intercultural environments, whereas the latter describes an individual’s feelings of admiration or preference for specific cultural outgroup(s), over their ingroup. Few studies have simultaneously examined these constructs and fewer still have considered these within a nomological framework of key predictors (i.e., basic psychological needs: need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence) and practical outcomes (i.e., cross-group friendships, influentialness, environmental behaviours, maladaptive health behaviours). We hypothesized a series of relationships of various antecedents and outcomes of cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism, and tested these conjectures using survey data from Canadians (n=238) and Americans (n=239). The findings support the psychometric robustness of our operationalization of xenocentrism, and clearly distinguish this construct from cosmopolitanism. Beyond confirming earlier findings (e.g., how proenvironmental behaviours are predicted by cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism), we illuminate several novel relationships (e.g., between basic psychological needs and cosmopolitanism), and elucidate the role played by a key personality dimension, neuroticism, in mediating the relationships between basic psychological needs, and the two outgroup orientations. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are elucidated.

• Mark Cleveland(University of Western Ontario, Canada)
• Anjana Balakrishnan(University of Western Ontario, Canada)