Contemporary lifestyles and values of students in louisiana, USA and North Cyprus: A cross cultural study

Abstract

This article reports the results of a cross cultural survey of values and lifestyles of Turkish and American college students. The sample consisted of 182 students from a university in North Cyprus and 101 students at a university in Louisiana. The students were asked to respond to a set of questions which indicated values and lifestyles in terms of the four dimensions of family values, materialism, postmaterialism, and idealism. The role of religion in politics has grown stronger in both the United States and Turkey in recent years. However, the United States can be said to be “postmodern,” while Turkey is still a developing country. One might expect to find significant differences among the two groups of students. It was found that the Turkish students were more liberal in terms of family values and they also appeared to be more idealistic than the American students. However, in terms of materialism, it was not found that one group of students were more materialistic than the other. Both groups demonstrated tendencies to want nice clothes and possessions. In terms of postmaterialism, both groups of students demonstrated postmaterialist values, particularly on the dimension of caring about the environment. Our results may be influenced by cultural differences between the students. Also the Turkish students represent those from a mostly urban elite population, while the American students were from an area of the country with below average income. These factors need to be examined more closely in future research. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.