The relative influence of consumer socialisation agents on children and adolescents : the impact of stages of internal development and surrounding cultural context

Abstract

This thesis examines the influence of stages of internal development (measured in the consumer context) in children and adolescents, as well as surrounding cultural context (represented by family structure), on the relative influence of consumer socialisation agents (such as parents, peers and mass media). In total, 300 Indian children between the ages of 6-16 years completed a questionnaire that included both consumer development and consumer socialisation scales. As expected, the three stages of consumer development, which were empirically determined using 13 consumer development indicators, closely matched John's (1999) conceptual descriptions of stages of consumer socialisation, i.e. Perceptual, Analytical and Reflective. Contrary to expectations, the study results suggested that the relative influence of consumer socialisation agents was able to predict a greater number of developments in the consumer abilities of children and adolescents, as compared to age-related maturation. This could be attributed to the moderating impact of cultural context (family structure) on the antecedents and predictors of consumer development in children and adolescents, namely, age-related maturation and consumer socialisation processes. Age-related maturation was found to be a significant predictor of the relative influence of consumer socialisation agents, especially comparing Adolescence to other age groups. This was confirmed for all the consumer socialisation processes studied, except children's consumption autonomy. As expected, family structure also impacted significantly upon the relative influence of consumer socialisation agents, especially comparing Nuclear families to Extended types of families. This was confirmed with respect to consumer socialisation processes such as restriction of consumption, children's consumption autonomy and extent of peer group influence. Further, family structure also had an additional impact on 'relative influence', due to its significant interaction with all the consumer socialisation processes, which resulted in 'cultural' or 'contextual' processes of consumer socialisation. Overall, children and adolescents were impacted by the relative influence of consumer socialisation agents; relative to both their age-related maturation and the family structure in which they are bought up. Although the results were generally consistent with literature and past research, it was suggested that the existing theory on children's consumer development needs to be modified, taking into account the impact of cultural contexts such as family structure.

Date of Award	2006
Original language	English