Worshipping at the altar of consumerism

Professor of Marketing Naomi Mandel and her partners in research explore how religion affects buying behavior.

What’s the driving force behind whether consumers choose expensive luxury brand vehicles or opt for economical hybrids? Part of the answer could depend on whether they attend houses of worship on Sunday mornings. After all, the numbers indicate their buying power; 80 percent of people worldwide say they identify with a religion (Pew Forum, 2012) and 70 percent of Americans admit their faith affiliation influences their daily behavior (Pew, 2008).

In the age of passionate attachment to brands (think when Apple devotees sleep at the mall to catch the latest iPhone release), it’s important for savvy marketers to analyze how religion influences consumerism. Consumption is one important way through which people of faith express their values. It seems logical to assume Catholics might purchase more rosary beads, while Hebrews would buy less pork. That’s the natural part of the equation. But what about whether a person of faith is more or less likely to buy from a company with sustainable policies? And what about how their belief system actively influences the values that promote those decisions?

Digging for revelations

Those are among the questions Professor of Marketing Naomi Mandel and her partners in research — Daniele Mathras, a former ASU doctoral student, and Adam Cohen, a psychology professor at ASU —  sought to address in their paper, “The Effects of Religion on Consumer Behavior.”  The paper recently won the Journal of Consumer Psychology Best 2016 Paper by Early Career Contributor Award. It got started, she says, as an extension of their personal interests and curiosities. Mandel defines her perspective as non-religious. Her colleagues, however, each lent their affiliations and areas of expertise including Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. The paper doesn’t hand out easy answers or cite many quantifiable data.

Their collaborative effort, rather, serves as a conceptual framework for defining religion, first, and then making a case for further study based on propositions gleaned from articles to date. Like passionate archeologists, the team sifted through 180 articles in five prominent consumer journals published between 1992 and 2014. They discovered an average of just five articles per year mentioning the word, “religion.” While there has been a steady increase in those reports since 2007, studying religion as it relates to consumer behavior is still underrepresented in literature today.

Mandel and her team hope their paper inspires and empowers researchers to take the baton and propel the effort forward. Their research, she says, led to two important conclusions that merit further study.  First, she says, “Religion serves a vital function in people’s lives and influences how they cope with a range of issues.” And second, while scholars have long studied religion’s impacts on personal behavior, more should be done to explore religion as a primary concept as it relates to consumerism. Additional quantitative work, they argue, should be embraced using testable theoretical insights.

Parsing it down: religion’s four dimensions

The team asserts religion itself is a multidimensional construct or a way to piece together a complex concept into smaller, digestible sizes. In keeping with that theory, they adopted author and scholar Roger Schmidt’s definition of religion: “systems of meaning embodied in a pattern of life, a community of faith, and a worldview that articulate a view of the sacred and of what ultimately matters.” Much of the research dedicated to the topic analyzes differences in consumer choices between those of various religious affiliations, or different levels of “religiosity” — the devotion with which we moderate faith. Mandel and her team assert religion’s influence is most often expressed, though, through the practice of four dimensions that promote variables in consumer behavior: beliefs, rituals, values, and community constructs.

Beliefs: finding meaning in concepts

The acceptance of an afterlife. The certainty of a divine creator. The presence of original sin. Most religions share a set of beliefs that stitch together a broader ideology. Researchers, the paper asserts, could use different measurement scales to analyze those beliefs to determine how they affect the deeper psychology behind consumer choices. What people of faith believe about death, for example, can play a significant role in consumerism. Buddhists encourage believers to focus on present-centered living, which can lead to a focus on compassionate consumer choices.

The Jewish community is less likely to embrace life after death, which can produce anxiety. Those who feel more of a threat of death with no promise of an afterlife may instead attach themselves to luxury brands like Lexus or Rolex to carve a legacy around culturally accepted notions of status. Therefore, one of the paper’s eight primary propositions claims that religious beliefs about an afterlife existence can dampen the effects of fearing mortality on materialism and brand connections.

What we found continually was just how much religion helps people to cope with fears such as death, or other life challenges — instead of turning to compensatory consumption [or spending to deal with], which can lead to maladaptive behaviors such as overspending or overeating,” says Mandel. 

Rituals: connections in comfort

What does eating a tasteless wafer have to do with a relationship with the divine? Rituals are behaviors and activities that offer a symbolic meaning — performed and repeated in a similar order each time, such as holy communion in Catholicism, Passover Seder in Judaism, or meditation in Buddhism.   Rituals create a lasting bond between members and can relate to interesting effects on consumerism. Catholicism’s practice of cleansing rituals, including the confession of sins, showcases one example.

Research by Mandel and her colleagues showed that after Catholics had made a confession about mistreating the environment, they were more likely to increase their preferences for green products, to make amends for their sins. Non-Catholics did not change their behavior after confession. Similarly, overeating could give Catholics (but not non-Catholics) a strong urge to correct the behavior with a focus on dietary foods or health products.  Future research, Mandel and her team advocate, could study the affects of different religions on behaviors that could help consumers to get back on track with more favorable consumption choices following a transgression.

Values: self-control vs. indulgence

“People within a faith community tend to be more forgiving,” says Mandel. It’s an ideal that may prove beneficial to companies embroiled in negative PR, such as the recent headline-grabbing incident at United Airlines when a passenger was forcibly removed from a flight. Their confession of culpability and appeal for mercy might have a higher chance of resonating with those who embrace redemption. Many religions encourage the faithful to model personal values that tend to shape behavior such as self-respect and also influence consumer altruism, volunteerism, and charitable giving. Those who reported higher levels of religiosity are more likely to give their time and talent generously. Values informed by religion also influence preferences for particular products or loyalties to companies that embrace socially conscious practices. (Think TOMS®, the favorite shoe brand that promises to deliver a pair of shoes to an impoverished child with each purchase.)

Buddhists, devoted to values such as compassion, are more likely to buy products obtained under fair trade policies, for example. The value of self-control plays a central role in consumption. By focusing on long-term goals such as the promise of an afterlife, or by engaging in practices such as prayer and fasting that require robust self-regulation, religious people are encouraged to embrace the ideals of restraint. In turn, they may choose to moderate their choices when it comes to indulgence and focus more on long-term goals — a possible win for businesses promoting services such as financial investment.

Community Structures: satisfying the craving to belong

Humans express an inherent need to belong. Research has long supported the notion that the need to belong affects consumption choices. When consumers feel marginalized, for example, their purchasing habits spike to get noticed. Being part of a religious community often satiates that urge to identify with a group, which can improve self-esteem.

For marketers that is both good and troubling news. The involvement with a community-based religion mitigates the powerful need to belong that drives many consumption choices, such as the purchase of luxury or high-status brands. If one is filled up volunteering at the food bank alongside church members, purchases to calm the needs for connection or status might be less likely. However, belonging to a religious group can also inspire loyalty among products and brands that endorse their values. Think about evangelical Christians lining up to support Chick-Fil-A during a recent boycott when the company actively promoted conservative values.

The race for brand loyalty

Mandel says she and her colleagues hope to inspire scholars and researchers to use the propositions and scales cited in their piece to explore the deeper meaning behind why religion (including the absence of a faith life) affects consumer choices. Research can be challenging and may suffer bias toward demographic groups and ethnicities concentrated within various faith affiliations. But the topic is growing in importance in today’s climate. “Today, consumers use brands and products as substitutes for religion, and are becoming more loyal to brand communities — such as Harley-Davidson owner groups,” says Mandel. So should marketers adopt similar persuasive techniques used in religious practices to inspire brand allegiance? “Someone should study that,” says Mandel.