Future Anxiety and Consumption Adaptation under Food Price Inflation: Cross-Cultural Evidence on Young Adult Vulnerability

Abstract This study examines the association between food price inflation related consumer purchasing behaviors and future anxiety among the business faculty students in Türkiye and Hungary. The study uses two previously developed scales and data is collected from university students in Istanbul and Pécs. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) has been utilized for the testing of the proposed model. The results indicate that purchase motivations were positively associated with fear of the future in the Hungarian sample whereas the corresponding association was not statistically significant in the Turkish sample. Within-sample comparisons showed a gender difference in fear of the future in Türkiye, while the gender difference observed in Hungary concerned food shopping behaviors rather than future anxiety. In both samples, hopelessness about the future and food shopping behaviors were positively associated with fear of the future, whereas food consumption patterns were negatively associated with it. These findings suggest that the relationships between future anxiety and food price-related consumer behaviors may vary across socioeconomic and institutional contexts. However, the cross-sectional design does not support causal inference, and the country comparisons should not be interpreted as direct tests of national culture. The findings of this study will further expand upon the properties of behavioral finance, by providing additional evidence that psychological stressors are associated with consumption patterns during inflationary periods.