Assessment of Turkish consumer attitudes using an Animal Welfare Attitude Scale (AWAS)

Veterinaria Mexico OA ISSN: 2448-6760 Cite this as: Kilic I, Bozkurt Z. Assessment of Turkish consumer attitudes using an Animal Welfare Attitude Scale (AWAS). Veterinaria Mexico OA. 2020;7(1). doi: 10.22201/fmvz.24486760e.2020.1.663. The aim of this study was to examine Turkish consumer attitudes towards animal welfare in terms of cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions, using a bespoke Animal Welfare Attitude Scale (AWAS). An overall consumer attitude was also determined. The Delphi technique was used to establish an item pool to develop a questionnaire for the construction of the AWAS. This questionnaire was later used for data collection. A total of 2295 consumers were surveyed in 14 cities, in the 7 regions of Turkey. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), reliability analysis, Ward's hierarchical clustering method and One-way ANOVA were used to validate the questionnaire, and to analyze data. Results of the EFA allowed for allocation of 42 items collected under 3 dimensions (cognitive, affective and behavioral), that explained 72% of the total variance of the model. This factor structure was subsequently confirmed by a CFA performed on a different sample of 425 consumers. The Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for AWAS was calculated at 0.829. These results confirmed that the developed AWAS had a valid and reliable scale. The questionnaire showed that consumers' attitudes towards animal welfare were more negative at the behavioral dimension, than either at the cognitive or affective dimensions. Consumers in Turkey were ultimately divided into three groups according to their overall attitudes towards animal welfare as impassive, moderate or sensitive. One-third of Turkish consumers placed in the sensitive group, thus emphasizing a potential niche for animal-friendly food marketing in Turkey.