Value priorities and religiosity in a changing world: cases of the Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus

The aim of the study is to determine Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus citizen?s value priorities. This cross-sectional study involves 401 (194 males and 207 females) persons selected by random method. Schwartz Value Inventory was used as a data collection tool. In this study, value orderings of the participants were ascertained and the relationships of their value orientations with religious and socio-demographic variables were researched. Furthermore the relationship of their religiosity images with age, gender, educational level, origin and residence variables was analyzed. According to the results of the study, while the value to which participants give much more importance is the tradition, the value to which participants less importance is the stimulation. The value orientations of benevolence, conformity, universalism, self-direction, achievement, religiosity, security, hedonism and power respectively are between the two values. This ordering reveals that Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus public gives more importance to social values than individual values. On the other hand, the negative relationships between religious variables and hedonism and stimulation, the positive relationships among benevolence, tradition, conformity, security and religiosity; among the universalism value, significant relationships which present positive aspect with some and negative aspect with some were ascertained.