A STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY VALUE ON UTILITARIAN CONSUMPTION AND GREEN CONSUMPTION VALUE

Abstract

Today, consumption has ceased to be a phenomenon and constitutes a complex structure that has
become a value, a culture and a passion. This structure has been the subject of many disciplines
individually and socially, has been examined and still continues to be examined. Especially in
recent years, increasing environmental problems, increasing greenhouse gas effect and
environmental wastes, people's rapid destruction of natural resources have led to an increase in the
number of studies on green consumption, sustainable consumption and voluntary simplicity.The
increase in consumption, even reaching the level of madness, and the increase in the number of
people who are tired of consumption and the noise of the city, have also increased the number of
people who voluntarily choose a simple lifestyle. The aim of this study is to empirically examine
the effect of voluntary simplicity value on utilitarian consumption and green consumption value.
For this purpose, consumers over the age of 18 in the Turkish population were targeted and the
online survey method was applied to 384 people selected by convenience sampling method. As a
result of the analyzes, it was seen that there was a moderate correlation at 0.01 significance level
between the voluntary simplicity value and utilitarian consumption. It was determined that there is a
positive and strong relationship between voluntary simplicity value and green consumption value
and between utilitarian consumption and green consumption value at 0.01 significance level. In
addition, according to the results of the regression analysis to determine the causal relationship
between the variables; it was found that voluntary simplicity explained 30.5% of the change in
utilitarian consumption behavior, 74.3% of the change in green consumption value, and 52.6% of
the change in green consumption value from utilitarian consumption behavior