Investigating the Relationship Among Religious Group Attachement and Consumer Preferences: A Field Research Conducted in the Province of Kirikkale

The effects of social environment in which individual exists on consumption cannot be ignored. These effects are higher in collectivist cultures where interactions among people are high like Turkey. But studies are too lack which investigates the relationships among religious group and consumer preferences which is one of the important type of social set. People tend to behave suitable with the expectancies of religious groups and group members that they participate in or sympathize. The goal of this research is pointing out the relationships among connection level with religious groups and consumer choices. Under this framework, extend literature investigation is made and relationships among religious groups and consumer choices is tried to be explained theoretically. After that, these relationships are tested with initial data which is collected by survey method that is conducted with 452 consumers in Kirikkale. To reach research goals, difference and correlation analyses are made. According to research results, it is seen that religious group driven consumption behavior varies in terms of membership condition and religious group sympathy. Moreover, it is understood that, religious group attachment, which has individual and social dimensions, is meaningfully related with sensitive consumption to group relations, suitable product preference to religion and preference of firm that suitable with political view.