trendgroup
trendgroup.biz →
Vol. 01 / 2019—2026

Cultural and value changes in Türkiye

An interactive diagnostic instrument for CMOs, CHROs, strategy leads and investors. Built on Eric Berne's transactional analysis, Clare W. Graves' Spiral Dynamics, and Manfred Max-Neef's matrix of human needs — applied to seven years of fieldwork across 24 Turkish cities.

24
Cities surveyed
1,500
Depth interviews
8
Value strata
3
Ego states mapped
01 — The diagnoses

Eras of Türkiye

Five overlapping layers of social formation. Each still echoes in today's consumer, workforce and political behavior.

  1. 18c. · 01

    Nomads

    Pastoral economies trading surplus animal products to sedentary villages across Anatolia.

  2. 19c. · 02

    Sedentary

    The state breaks tribal power. Peasants reduced to sharecroppers under expanding landholders.

  3. 1960—80s · 03

    Industrialization

    Two great internal migrations. Cheap rural labour feeds montage industry in the cities.

  4. 1990s · 04

    Localism

    Status forms around natal province. Hospitality and resource access flow through tribal and regional ties.

  5. 2000s+ · 05

    Regionalism

    Turkey enters global production networks. Regional economic projects gain new geopolitical weight.

02 — Family

What is ‘family’ connected with

Family is not simply “more important” in Türkiye — it is structured differently. Seven overlapping eras have shaped what the institution carries, demands, and protects.

Era reading

Grandmas Era

Men had decisive symbolic roles but secondary roles in disciplining children. The family revolved around the mother and especially the grandmother. Grandmothers disciplined children with love, compassion, fear and beating.

Meanings

What ‘family’ means

Trend Group, Cultural Codes — 24 cities, 1,500 interviews, supported by semiology desk research.

Discipline

dependence · education · responsibility · morality

Genuine

connected · loyalty · protection · unconditional love · honesty · respect · tolerance · mature

Tranquility

peace · simple · nature lover

Happiness

colorful · uproarious · crowded

Peasant

poverty · cook a lot · eat a lot

Conservative

old-rooted · traditional values and norms

Warrior

fighter · functional · supportive

Opposite characters

trouble

Sayings

Family in proverb

Ağlarsa anam ağlar, gerisi yalan ağlar

If anyone cries for me, it would be my mother; others cry a lie.

Only the mother truly shares the bad feelings — others' sorrows are surface.

Ağaç yaprağı ile güzeldir

A tree is beautiful with its leaves.

Without family, relatives and friends one is a leafless tree — weak and unproductive.

Ana gibi yar, Bağdat gibi diyar olmaz

There is no lover like a mother and no place like Baghdad.

No bond is as deep as the bond with one's mother.

Bıçak sapını kesmez

The knife does not cut its handle.

People cannot harm their parents or children — the family tie is structural.

Çocuktan al haberi

Learn it from the kid.

Children recklessly disclose family matters — secrets travel through them.

03 — Berne

PAC Ego-State Dashboard

From Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis. Brands, like persons, transact from a dominant ego state. Tap a state to see how leading organisations stage it.

Hero archetype

Tesla

“My way is highway.” Maintains absolute authority over the vehicle — can be revoked through remote intervention.

Comparative corporate plays
  • AppleAbsolute and strict control established over its own ecosystem.
Workshop note

The workshops will include examples of communication status in Türkiye.

04 — Graves

Spiral Dynamics, applied to Türkiye

Clare W. Graves mapped human value systems as eight emergent stages, each with its own colour. Slide through the spiral to read where Turkish culture concentrates today.

SURVIVALHOLISTIC
Stage · 2000s

Orange

Striver, ambitious, success and goal oriented

Worldview

Appeal to competitive advantage and leverage. Success motivation, achieving abundance. Bigger, better, newer, faster. Profit, productivity, quality, results, winning.

Where it lives in Türkiye

Boğaziçi-graduate professional class. Tech ecosystem, MBA logic, KPI culture.

Brand & institutional examples

Magnum · Pegasus (flypgs) · Alexander Wang × H&M

Pragmatic, intelligent, seizes every opportunity, hardworking, and strives for the best.

05 — Semiotics

The collective memory, read through pop music

A semiotic collage of Turkish pop video — lyrics, gesture, framing, the body of the singer — used as a primary instrument for cultural change between 1960 and 2026.

Open the collage

popmusic.trendgroup.biz

Pop Müzik & Kolektif HafızaExternal archive
06 — Max-Neef

Human Needs & Workshop Customisation

The full matrix maps nine fundamental human needs to the satisfiers active in Turkish society today — the working ground for our executive workshops with CMO, CHRO and strategy teams.

What you unlock
  • → Full 9-axis Max-Neef matrix with Turkish satisfiers.
  • → Workshop formulas for CHRO / CMO interventions.
  • → Sample diagnostic for one of your brands or business units.

Trend Group will follow up with a custom workshop scope within two business days. Corporate email required.

07 — Bibliography

Sources

The diagnostic instrument is anchored in three traditions — depth psychology, human-scale development, and seven years of Turkish field semiology.

Foundational theory

9
  • Book

    Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy

    Eric Berne

  • Book

    Spiral Dynamics in Action — Humanity's Master Code

    Don Beck, Teddy Hebo Larsen, Sergey Solomin, Rica Viljoen, Thomas Q. Johns

  • Book

    Human Scale Development — Conception, Application and Further Reflections

    Manfred A. Max-Neef, Antoni Elizalde, Martin Hopenhayn

  • Book

    Simulacra and Simulation

    Jean Baudrillard

  • Book

    La conscience métisse

    Daryush Shayegan

  • Book

    The Ecology of Freedom — The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy

    Murray Bookchin

  • Book

    Hope in the Dark — Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

    Rebecca Solnit

  • Book

    Small Architecture / Natural Architecture

    Kengo Kuma

  • Book

    Cradle to Cradle

    William McDonough & Michael Braungart

Türkiye-specific reading

6
  • Book

    Türkiye'de Çocukluğun Tarihi

    Bekir Onur

  • Book

    Nöbetleşe Yoksulluk — Sultanbeyli Örneği

    Oğuz Işık, M. Melih Pınarcıoğlu

  • Book

    Zamane

    Engin Geçtan

  • Book

    Türkiye'de Pop Müzik

    Metin Solmaz

  • Book

    20. Yüzyılda Türkiye'de Popüler Müzikler

    Cemal Yurga

  • Essay

    Bak Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş

    Naim Dilmener

Film & documentary

4
  • Film

    The Lovers' Wind (Bad-e Saba)

    Albert Lamorisse

  • Film

    The Red Balloon

    Albert Lamorisse

  • Film

    The Wisdom to Survive — Climate Change, Capitalism & Community

    Old Dog Documentaries

  • Film

    Ancient Futures — Learning from Ladakh

    After the book by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Field instrument

2
  • Field

    Cultural Codes — 24 cities · 1,500 interviews + desk research using semiology

    Trend Group

  • Field

    World Values Survey — Inglehart–Welzel cultural map (Secular-Rational × Self-Expression)

    WVS