An Association Between Religiosity And Consumer Behavior: A Conceptual Piece

Abstract

Religion is found to be a very important element of culture and it plays an important role by influencing consumers' attitude and behavior to purchase or consume products or brands. Religiosity is a different thing from religion but within a particular religion, religiosity also influences the consumers' attitudes and behaviors, according to the values and laws of a particular religion. It is also evident that consumers who have high levels of religiosity follow the rules of religious obligation more rigorously than who have a lower level of religiosity. Religion as an inherent human value has received little attention from consumer researchers. The reason for ignoring the religion in evaluations of consumer processes is that most of the academicians are less religious than the general public and that is why they give less attention to religion to understand consumer behavior. Although a limited number of studies come in consumer literature, but majority section of the scholars ignores this area. Studies on religion and consumer should be conducted with the same level of rigor and objectivity as other influential social characteristics for developing a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior.