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Chapter: 2 Review of Literature

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2. In this chapter the literature available on children’s influence in family purchase

decisions is reviewed. The review is divided in to four main parts, beginning with

examining the theoretical aspect of children’s influence in family purchase decision

process. Later this part will review all the literature on children’s influence across stages of

decision making process, across different product categories and across stages of child

development. Second part will review all the literature available on the impact of

demographic factors (e.g. child, parent and family characteristics), Culture/subculture,

Religion and schools/teachers on children’s influence in family purchase decision process.

Third part will discuss all the literature on family communication patterns including

different parental styles on children’s influence in family purchase decisions. The last part

of this chapter will review all the literature on consumer socialization of children especially

the role of media as a socialization agent. It will also shed light on policy regulatory

measures of advertising to children through different Medias.

2.1. Theory about Children’s Influence

2.1.1. Introduction

Understanding the theory about children influence is very necessary as it assists in

describing the role of children in family purchase decision process. One important theory

that explores the role of children in family is “Resource theory”. Blood & Wolfe, (1960)

first defined resources as the power or influence that one person make available to another

person helping the latter to satisfy his needs and accomplish his/her goals. Later on

Tashakkori et al., (1989) revealed that resources represent the parental power based on

resources like; education level, age and family communication pattern. There are basically

five types of resources including; normative, economic, affective, personal and cognitive

resources. These resources serve as the basis out of which the family members derive the

power or tendency to influence others (McDonald, 1980). Normative resources represent

family norms and values. Economic resources represent the power and control exerted by

the main income earner in the family. Affective resources refer to the interpersonal

relations among the family members. Personal resources talk about the physical

appearance and the role competence. Cognitive resources represent the intelligence of the

family members. Resources theory talks that parents might use normative and economic

Department of Management 8 Jamia Hamdard


resources, where as children are using affective and cognitive resources to accomplish their

goals during purchase decision making. This theory provides the basis to explain how

children influence their parent’s behaviour during purchase discussions.

2.1.2. Defining the Influence

The definition of “influence” varies from person to person. Some recognize it as the active

dimension, while as other perceive it as both active and passive dimensions. Ekstrom,

(1995) states influence, as “a change in a person’s dispositions, as a result of interaction

between parents and children’’. Cartwright, (1999) states influence as “a conjecture when

one person acts in such a way as to change the behaviour of another in some intended

manner.” Gronhoj, (2002) defines influence as “a family member’s competence to achieve

specific results by influencing the partner’s behaviour, attitudes and feelings”. Flurry,

(2005) stated that, “a child’s influence attempts are intended to achieve control over the

decision outcome.” Moreover Mikkelsen, (2007) defines influence as “Children’s active

and passive attempts to achieve parent’s permission to participate in family decision-

making thereby achieving specific results”. Thus from the above definitions, it can be said

that influence is actually, when a person wants to move the final decision maker away from

his/her own choice towards the option suggested by him/her.

Active influence is the direct influence, where children can actively participate in family

purchase decisions and can easily express their view over the purchase of a product or a

brand (Gronhoj, 2002; Blackwell, 2006). On the other hand passive influence is the

indirect influence, where parents are well aware of what a child wants without direct

interactions with the child (Mikkelsen, 2007). In passive influence there is no evidence of

speech from children side, but parents purchase the products which they know their

children desire, without being asked by the children to make that buy (Blackwell, 2006).

This indirect way of influencing parents purchase decisions is very difficult to measure,

although attempts were taken by Belch et al., (1985) and Jensen, (1990) about the existence

of this phenomenon, but still there has been little explicit research on this particular

subject.

Furthermore the body of knowledge pertaining to influence in family purchase decision

making differs in childhood. The definition of “childhood” differs in the research found.

For instance: Palan & Wilkes, (1997) defines childhood as the stage of an individual’s life

between 11 to 16 years of age. Olsen & Ruiz, (2008) defines childhood between 6-18 years



of age, marked by several advancements in children learning and cognitive abilities.

Goonesekere, (1998) defines childhood as a period between 6 and 14 years of age during

which important developmental advances takes place in children that establishes their

sense of identity (Child and Law, Indian Council for Child Welfare, as stated by

Goonesekere, 1998). Hehlmann, (1974) states that childhood is the living stage of an

individual’s life, linked with chronological age, placed between infancy and youth, and

including adolescence. This stage of an individual’s life is marked by gross changes in both

physically and mentally development (Oerter, 1987). According to Nestle, (2010),

childhood is a most vital phase, where the behaviour is nurtured and trained by a variety of

factors. Chaplin & Roedder, (2010) believes that parent’s role could be the most

predominate factor in contributing children’s development in the face of consumer

socialization.

Until 18th century child was considered to be small, immature adult whose importance was

hardly being seen in family as influencing or deciding unit. In the beginning of 19th

century there was growing concern about children’s rising importance in families. Up until

the 20th century, the dual earning household generated a cash rich and time poor household

way, which led to children’s involvement in daily household activities (Heyer, 1997). This

changing household pattern as a result of the rise in working women has resulted in more

open and democratic families, which in turn had a deep influence on the rising economic

power, independence of children, with the result that they are now actively participating

and influencing their family’s decision-making process more than they did in the previous

generation (Kaur & Singh, 2006; Norgaard et al., 2007).

2.1.3. History of Children’s Influence

In the older generations, children were hardly been seen as active participants in family

purchase decisions, as they were brought up in strict and independent rules of their parents.

Children had no word to say in the families, they just obeyed to the orders of parents

whatever was being said and whatever given to them (Barlosius, 2009). Mothers had a

strong control over the purchase behaviour of their children and occupied the position as

central heads and offered veto power over their children. In case of discrepancy with their

child on some purchase decisions, the mother tried to overly her preference over their

children (Kaur & Singh, 2006). Mother’s approval was ultimate for purchase of the

product, whether the product was good or bad for the child (Cook, 2003).



Marketers started to concentrate on children market from nineteen century when for the

first time in 1965, Life magazine published the photographs of an in-utero foetus. The

photograph showed image of a foetus detached from the mother’s womb, unabsorbed by

placental matter and floating in the space. The basic aim of showing the picture of the

foetus was to show that child is independent from his/her mother and has his/her own

needs and wants in life. After this the research market about children began to rise and

marketers started looking this market as a separate market whose needs and wants can be

fulfilled by children only (Cook, 2003).

In the last 50 years, with the change in family structure, rise in working women and more

over the change in the family communication pattern had a great effect on the children’s

independence and power in terms of what to buy and what not to buy (Kaur & Singh,

2006; Norgaard, 2007). Today children have more influence in the families and they have

turned to be the active interactions partners to their parents for purchase decisions (Heyer,

1997). The influence children have over their parents purchase decisions is increasing day

by day. Children did not like to be treated as “children”, but as “young adults” and need

to have an equal treatment as their mother’s. “Marketing to Kids is now no longer Kid

stuff”, as revealed by Halan, (2002). This situation leads children to have their own needs

and wants, all of it decided by them own. Nowadays they have obtained the status of a

‘person’ with full rights as they know better than their parents at each stage of life. Thus a

popular term “Kids grow up young” describes this children evolvement (Lindstrom, 2003).

2.1.4. Children influence in family purchase decision process

Children have a promising influence over their parent’s purchase decisions. Parents from

Western countries and even from Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and South

Korea have declared that children have a dominating effect on their purchase decisions.

They even stated that the children’s demands in the family are the main reason for

purchase of the products (Rachagan, 2004). Today research has shown that there are

several reasons, why children are turning to be so important in family purchase decisions.

First is change in family structure from single earning parent to dual earning couple, which

resulted in to time poor and cash rich society, thus involving children in family purchases.

Second, the rise in the number of divorces leading to increase in single parent households,

which in turn have a positive outcome on children’s shopping behaviour. Third, lesser the

number of children in a family due to decline in the birth rate resulting in to increase in the



purchase power of each child. Finally the parents postpone child birth until he/she gets

well progression in their career. This has resulted in to increase in disposable income and

thus empowered the child to contribute in family purchase decisions (McNeal, 1992;

Hahlo, 1999; Wegnez, 2000; Rogers & Rose, 2002). Today children are spenders, buyers

and decision makers and real customers and have removed the role of the parent from the

picture. Whatever is purchased in the family, children have a strong influence whether the

product is expensive/costly or for personal/family use (Soloman, 2001). The overall

influence exerted by children varies by stages of decision making process, across children

developmental stages and across different product categories.

2.2. Children as a Potential Consumer Market

Children have become an important consumer market and have decisions to make on how

to spend their own money. McNeal, (1992) believes that children should be acknowledged

as a market force and ideally satisfied. Children today have developed unique demands to

be satisfied, hence require a distinctive approach to satisfy these demands. Every year the

purchase abilities of children about what they purchase for themselves or for families

increases with age. Children of present generation make more purchase decisions

compared to previous generations. The market for children products is growing day by day

and marketers are trying best to create needs and desires of their products in children’s

minds, owing to the fact that this will stimulate their obsession to spend the money on

these products (McNeal, 1990). At present children are trained to be the future loyal

customers. Numerous companies embark on the policy of attaining children loyalties by

introducing their brands and products at much earlier stages of life, with the hope that they

will get aware of their products by the time they grow old (Solomon, 1996).

In India, the children’s influence in the family purchase decision-making is leaping up

(Mukherjee, 2006). The role children played in family purchase decisions has totally

changed in last four to five years. As Rajat Jain of Spencer, (2011) described: “From pester

power kids have changed their role to becoming influencers”. This is not only true for their

personal usage products, but for family usage products too (Flurry, 2007). Today the role

has totally reversed and “In fact, in the older age group, kids have actually become

consultants, whom parents turn to for advice during the decision-making process,” said

Rajat Jain of Spencer, (2011). The higher degree of contact to outside world, changing

family profile and media exposure has given a big push to Indian children consumerism.



Arrival of niche channels like Cartoon Network, Hungama and Tanami have contributed a

lot in Kids power in India and today children have been recognized as a significant and

different consumer market and has been a primary target of every consumer goods

company to create new product categories and service offerings to satisfy their needs (Ali,

et al., 2011). Kaur & Singh, (2006) revealed that children constitute three different

markets; the primary, the influencer, and the future market as shown in figure (2.2).

Primary Market: Certain products for which children are the primary users like breakfast

cereals, toys, movie–CD’s, Shoes, chocolates etc. They either purchase the product by their

own or select the product before it is being purchased by their parents.

Influencer Market: For some products which are meant for the family, they can influence

the purchase made by parents. Mikkelsen, (2007) stated that children can either actively

influence by overly specifying their preferences or can passively influence without direct

interaction with parents. This passive influence occurs when the parent’s purchase

behaviour is affected by the previous knowledge about the tastes and preferences of the

child.


Figure (2.2) Children Market(Source: Kaur and Singh, 2006)


Future Market: There are some products for which children are the future customers and

companies are building long terms loyalties, by introducing their company’s brand

awareness from early child hood with the hope that these children will be aware with their

products from early childhood (Solomon, 1996).

2.3. Children’s Influence across Stages of Decision-making Process

The influence of children in family purchase decision making has been found to differ

across stages of purchase decision, namely, problem recognition, information search and

purchase decision (Martinez & Polo, 1999) and sub decision, namely, when to buy, where

to buy, which to buy and how much to buy (Davis, 1971). Studies of Ahuja & Stinson,

(1993); Norgaard, (2007) and Tinson, Nancarrow & Brace, (2008) confirmed that children

influence mainly in first two stages of the decision making process i.e. problem recognition

and information search and there is little influence in the last stage i.e. purchase stage.

However the studies of Lee & Beauty, (2002) and Wimalasiri, (2004) revealed that

children influence all the three stages of decision making process by using different tactics.

Szybillo & Sosanie, (1977) showed that the purchase decision process involved all

members of the family (husband, wife, and children) in all three decision stages while

taking in to attention the family product category. Similar type of results were shown by

William & Veeck, (1998) in China, where most of the families have only one child, the

child exerted substantial influence during all the stages of purchase decision process while

buying products for family usage.

Belch et al., (2005) studied the impact of media on children and revealed that children are

more exposed to various types of Media’s; hence they have more access to information.

This all creates the impression on family purchase judgements and thus creates maximum

influence in problem initiation and information search and little in evaluation and choice

stages. The study also found that younger children use fewer elements to evaluate and

compare brands and the make choice decisions only on one attribute.

Kapoor, (2001) studied the role of children in family purchase decision making process in

Delhi (India) and found that that individual members are associated with multiple roles

across stages of purchase decision for different product categories. The young females or

the younger child were found to be imitator for purchase in a family. She also attributed

that the need for personal computer, audio sets and television is likely to be first articulated

by children and also children are found to be main influencer of its purchase. Chadh,



(1995) revealed through his study that younger children are responsible for introducing

new items in a family which was further supported by Kaur & Singh, (2006) that children

are active in initiating the idea to purchase, but in other stages of purchase decision, they

exhibit joint decisions with other family members.

Belch et al., (1985) on children’s influence in sub decision stage showed that children

influence is lowest in sub decisions like where to buy and how much to spend but more in

sub decisions like what to buy (brand choices, model selection and colour identification).

Similar type of results were exposed by the studies of Kaur, (2003) and Kaur & Singh,

(2004) that revealed that children are not found to influence in decisions like how much to

spend but make communicative decisions like model, colour ,shape and time of purchase

(Synovate, 2004). Children would make choices based on the pre-set boundaries

established by parents like parent determining the model of car and the child determining

the colour (Beauty & Talpade, 1994).

Singh, (1992) in a study in India found that families differed with respect to their roles in

making purchase sub decisions. The “when to purchase” is generally decided by husband

and wife with little influence by child. Hindal, (2001) also revealed similar types of results

and found that brand choice decisions are made together by husband and wife but are

significantly influenced by the children. Children are not found to be more influential for

instrumental decisions like how much to spent ( Varma, 1982, as cited by Kaur & Singh,

2006), but found to have more impact on expressive decisions like what to purchase,

colour, model, brand (Synovate, 2004; Gupta & Verma, 2000).

2.4. Children’s Influence across Different Product Categories

Johnson, (1995) found that product category is one chief basis of distinction in children’s

influence in the family purchase decision-making process. Thus the level of Children’s

influence directly correlates with the product category (Flurry, 2007; Tinson, Nancarrow &

Brace, 2008; Thiagarajan et al., 2009). Studies on children influence in family decision

making have shown that children yield influence on variety of products ranging from

household appliances to their own products. In past studies, children have been found to

yield bigger influence for their personal consumption products like toys (Burns &

Harrison, 1985, as cited by Kaur & Singh, 2006); cereals (Belch et al., 1985, as cited by

Kaur & Singh, 2006); snacks (Ahuja & Stinson, 1993) and children‘s wear (Foxman &

Tansuhaj, 1988; Holdert & Antonides, 1997). Children have also been seen to yield their



influence for family related products like vacations (Ahuja & Stinson, 1993; Belch et al.,

1985, as cited by Kaur & Singh, 2006; Tinson, Nancarrow & Brace, 2008); Family eating

out decisions (Filiatrault & Ritchie, 1980, as cited by Kaur & Singh, 2006) and movies

(Darley and Lim, 1986, as cited by Kaur & Singh, 2006). A few researchers have studied

the role of children in both family and children specific products (Foxman & Tansuhaj,

1988; Mc Neal & Yeh, 1997; Mangleburg et al., 1999). Similar results were found by

Tinson & Nancarrow, (20007), who recognized that children nowadays have influence

both in family (e.g. car for family, family holiday and going out for meals) and children

specific product (comic book, sweets, shoes, CD and fruits). However children are found to

have less authority and less influence on family related products which involves more

financial resources (Manglerburg, 1990).

Researchers have revealed that a number of factors play a substantial role on children’s

influence in family purchase decision process across different product categories. Berey &

Pollay, (1968, as cited by Kaur & Singh, 2006) studied mother-child dyads in purchase of

breakfast cereals. They found that in most of the products, parents act as intermediary

agents which are not openly available to children. Under such situations children’s

influence on parent’s purchase decisions is governed by two factors, children’s

assertiveness and parent’s child centeredness. The study showed that more assertive the

child or more children cantered the mother is, more probable the mother will buy the child

desired brands. The research also revealed that mother’s act as gatekeepers and buy

products that weighed high in nutrition. These findings were further strengthened by the

studies of Chan & McNeal, ( 2003) which revealed in China that child assertiveness can

increase the like-hood of children’s having his or her brand being bought.

Ahuja et al., (1993) stated that the extent of influence exerted by children not only depends

on product type but also depend on how the product is marketed. If the product is marketed

to mother, (e.g. housecleaning products or detergent etc.) child will have a minimum

influence. However if the product is marketed to child (e.g. toys, sweets etc.), child will

have a predominant influence for its purchase (Tinson, Nancarrow & Brace, 2008)

Geuens et al., (2002) revealed that children influence is seen to vary in different families

by the extent to which parents are busy and also who the user is and by the perceived

importance of the product to the user. (Beatty & Talpade, 1998). Palan & Wilkes, (1997)

studied the adolescent-parent interactions and concluded that adolescents are likely to use



negotiating (mommy deals and reasoning) and persuasion (opinions, bargaining) tactics to

influence decision making.

Tinson, Nancarrow & Brace, (2008) stated that even if children have more influence on

personal consumption products but the children who live with single parent household

have a tendency in the purchase influence of family products too. This is because of the

reason that children in single household have almost equal status and will often be

consulted in family specific product purchase decisions (Flurry, 2007).

Thiagarajan et al., (2009) found that children yield more influence on low risk involvement

products which are usually inexpensive and require less external search during its

purchase. For example personal consumption products (e.g. groceries, toys, etc.) are

generally low risk involvement products, because they do not require a high level of

external search and are usually inexpensive than family product(e.g. technical products).

Singh, (1992) studied the role of children in family decision making in India and found that

children influence varies according to parent’s professional involvement. Children

belonging to parents who were professionally involved exhibited more influence than those

who were not. Hundal, (2001) in a similar type of study in Amritsar district of Punjab

revealed that family purchase decisions linked to purchase of durables is influenced by

children even if the final purchase is made by parents alone. Moreover researches

conducted by various marketing research agencies like Kids-Link also exposed that

children have lot of information because of exposure to different types of Medias and

parents sought opinions even in purchase of products which are not openly used by

children like cars because of their knowledge of brands, models and colours etc.

2.5. Children’s Influence across Stages of Development

Researches on children have shown that children pass through different stages of

development. From the period of birth to adolescence notable changes occur in both

cognitive and social developments of a child (Valkenburg, 2000; Berk, 2003). The older

they grow, the better they think and more easily than can process the information and give

meaning to their environment. Many theorists from time to time gave different stages of

cognitive and social development in children.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development describes the intellectual development of a child.

Piaget believes that children are not less intelligent than adults, they simply think

differently. His theory of cognitive development proposes four main stages of child



development as: Sensorimotor stage from birth to two years (Birth – 2 years) of age,

Preoperational stage from two years to seven years (2-7 years) of age, Concrete

operational stage from seven years to eleven years (7-11 years) of age and the last stage as

Formal operational stage from eleven years to adulthood (11 years-adulthood) (Ginsburg,

Herbert & Sylvia, 1988). Remarkable differences occur in the cognitive development as

child passes through these four stages of development. Children in Preoperational stage

tend to be “perceptually bound” to readily visible aspects of their environment, unlike

children of Concrete operational stage, who do not understand perception as reality but can

easily think about the stimuli in their environment in a better way. Children in Concrete

operational stage take various dimensions of an external stimulus at a time and relate all

such dimensions of a stimulus and derive meaning out of it, unlike the children of

Preoperational stage who can focus only on one dimension of a stimulus and derive

meaning out of it. In the last Formal operational stage, children develop adults thought

pattern and are capable of relating various dimensions of many stimuli at a time and derive

many meaning out of it (Deborah, 1999)..

Information processing theories provide further explanation to the cognitive development

of a child. The tendency to collect, encode, organize, process the information varies with

respect to age of child. Children abilities to view at things from various aspects and to

accept others views increases as he/she becomes mature (Marquis, 2004). The literature on

consumer behaviour has classified children on the basis of skills to process information in

to three main segments as; Strategic processors, Cued Processors and Limited processors

(Roedder, 1981). Strategic processors are children aged twelve or above (≥12 years.) use

variety of strategies for storage and retrieval of information. Cued processors are children

aged between seven to eleven years (7- 11 years) are similar to Strategic processors but

lack the ability to produce the strategies immediately to process the information. Finally

the Limited processors are the children under the age of seven (<7 years), who have under

developed processing skills and base their decisions on incomplete information. (Deborah,

1999). Barenhoniim, (1981) points out that children pass through three stages of cognitive

development. In the first stage, the behavioural comparison stage (6-8 years), children do

comparisons on the basis of their impressions and base the comparisons on certain solid

psychological attributes. In the second stage, the Psychological construct stage (8-10

years), impressions are based on abstract construct. The last stage is Psychological



comparison stage (11 or 12 years). In this stage children become more mature and develop

more adult like impressions of people (Deborah, 1999).

Developments in social prospective were first addressed by Selman, (1980). His theory of

social development provides the basis to understand how a child’s abilities to comprehend

and understand different prospective progresses with age. This theory proposes four main

stages of child development as: Egocentric stage, the Social information role taking stage,

Self reflective role taking stage, Mutual role taking stage and Social and conventional

system role taking stage. Children in Egocentric stage (3-6 years) of age are immature and

completely unaware of any prospective except their own. As they proceed to Social

information role taking stage (6-8 years), they develop opinions and motives towards

others. In Self reflective role taking stage (8-10 years), children consider others opinions

before taking any decisions, but the ability to simultaneously consider others view point

along with its own is developed in Mutual role taking stage (10-12 years). The last stage

Social and conventional system role taking stage (12-15 years) features a further

development and the tendency to understand other persons prospective to which both of

them belong (Deborah, 1999).

The literature on consumer socialization also describes various cognitive and social

developmental changes which takes place with the progression of different stages of life of

a child from the consumer point of view (Ward, 1974). John, (1999) classified these stages

as: the Perceptual stage, the Analytical stage and the Reflective stage.

Perceptual stage, three to seven years (3-7 years): Children in this stage have a concrete

perception which is different from symbolic thoughts. This stage is characterised by a self

direction upon the readily apparent perceptual characteristics or the type of market place.

This stage of perceptual development is associated with the Piaget’s theory of “perceptual

boundness” on single dimensions of objects and events. Children’s consumer knowledge is

based on single dimensions of an object. Although they show familiarity with products,

brads, logos, but the tendency to understand them is quite low. Children in this stage are

self-centred, egocentric and seek immediate gratification. They take decision or influence

others based on the limited information without considering/involving other persons

perspective (John, 1999; Hall et al., 1995).

Analytical stage, eight to ten years (8-10 years): Children in this stage develop form both

cognitive and social perspective. This stage is characterised by increase in knowledge and



information processing, which results in further understanding of consumer knowledge

about products, brands, logos etc. Products and brands are analysed on the basis of many

product dimensions and decision are taken by taking these multiple dimensions into

account. In this stage the reasoning abilities of a child develop in more abstract way.

Children are quite aware about the advertising tactics and can easily understand the

purpose of advertisers in trying to sell the product by stimulating the need for it. Children

in this stage become more knowledgeable and display more openness in their choices, by

taking others perceptions in to account. They display flexibility in their approach while

influencing others and make other to be more adaptive and open toward their thoughts

(John, 1999).

Reflective stage, eleven to sixteen years (11-16 years): Children in this stage have well

developed cognitive and social skills and have a deep understanding of all marketing

concepts like products, brands, logos, prices etc. They develop more sophisticated

information processing and social skills and are able to think and analyse the things in a

much better and stylish way. The purchase decisions are taken in a more adaptive manner

and depending on the need, situation and condition. In a similar way attempts to influence

others is based on considering others perceptions and by taking many product attributes in

to consideration (John, 1999).

Thus the theories on cognitive and social development along with these stages of

socialization provide a basis to assess the changes, how children develop, think and notice

others perceptions and express themselves as consumers in the market place.



2.6. Impacts of demographic factors

The behaviour of the children changes with time related to influencing family purchases or

even purchasing for themselves. The variation in the behaviour of the children depends on

demographic variables like children, parent and family characteristics (McNeal & Yeh,

2003). This part of the thesis reviews all the available literature on the impact of

demographic factors on children’s influence in family purchase decisions under the

following headings:

2.6.1. Impact of Child Characteristics

A group of children characteristics have an important role to play on children’s influence

in family purchase decisions. These children characteristics have been measured using;

age, gender and order of children in a family as under:

2.6.1.1. Age of Child: Age is considered to be very important factor that determines the

extent of influence children have in family purchase decision making (Shoham & Dalakas,

2003). McNeal & Yeh, (2003) in his study revealed that, there exist positive relationship

between age and the influence in family purchase decisions. Studies of (Atkin, 1978;

Darley & Lim, 1986; Moschis & Mitchell, 1986) showed that with the increase of age of

child, the influence in family purchase decision increases. Furthermore the study of Palan

& Wilkes, (1997) showed that the type of interactions which affected the degree of the

influence also varies with the age of a child. These findings were further illustrated by the

study of (Gotze et al., 2009), who reasoned that the increase in influence is due to increase

in cognitive abilities of the child and increased marketing knowledge, which increases the

responsibilities guaranteed by their parents and removes the factors of constraining their

abilities to shop.

Research to date suggests that, as children grow older, they make more shopping trips, visit

more stores and make bigger percentage of purchase alone (McNeal & Yeh, 2003). The

study of (Ward et al., 1986) stated that with the increase in age of the children, their

dependency on parents for shopping decreases and they tend to become sophisticated

consumers. Study of Ward & Wackman, (1972) revealed that the children in early ages

from five to seven years have more influence in the purchase of toys and games, where as

children in much advanced ages from eleven to twelve have more influence in the purchase

of clothes and recorded albums. McNeal & Yeh, (2003) found a persistent increase in their



influence with age for hair care items, chips, CD’s, video games, television and cars.

Similar results were found by Shoham & Dalakas, (2006), who revealed that young

children have more influence than older children on purchase of children specific products

like ice creams, candy, pretzels and vacation travel, while as older children have more

influence than younger children on purchase of family specific products like computers,

cell phones and deodorants. Ward & Wackman, (1972) found that parental yielding

increases with the age of children, because children in latter age have much advanced

understanding of the marketing concepts. Children in older age become mature enough and

build up consumer skills and develop tendency to look at things from various angles and

admit other’s opinions (Marquis, 2004). Thus it can be concluded that children’s influence

increase as they grow older and it becomes harder for parent’s to refuse their purchase

requests.

2.6.1.2. Gender of Child: Gender of the child has also a substantial influence in family

purchase decisions. There are prominent differences regarding gender in dominating the

family purchase decisions. Boys are seen to be more influential for products like Video

games, CD’s and entertainment and fun items (McNeal & Yeh, 2003) whereas girls

influence are seen to be high in household items like clothes, bakery items and writing

papers (Atkin, 1978; Lee & Collins, 1999; McNeal & Yeh, 2003). Gender differences were

also studied by Cowan & Avants, (1988) and Maccoby, (1990) and pointed out that boys

and girls do not vary in their number of influence efforts, but do vary in their influence

style. Girls use diverse influential styles like reasoning, asking, and persuading than boys

and persuade their parents to purchase and thus tend to be more influential than boys

(Moschis & Mitchell, 1986; Lee & Collins, 1999).

Gender differences were observed in terms of dictating the influence on parents. Kaur &

Singh, (2006) revealed that male adolescents showed greater tendency towards store

choice, consumer knowledge, more materialistic values, while as female adolescents

showed greater tendency towards information search and cognitive differentiation in their

purchase behaviour.

Lee & Collins, (2000) studied parent- child shopping behaviour and discovered that fathers

are more inclined towards sons and feel more comfortable with sons during shopping than

daughters. On the other hand daughters support their mothers in purchase decisions as

mothers feel comfortable discussing several purchases with their daughters. However the



study of Kaur & Singh, (2006) points out that gender of older child also plays an important

role on the influence structure of the family than younger child. Father and elder daughter

and mother and son were found to be the best combinations to gain influence.

Sundberg et al., (1969, as quoted by kaur & Singh, 2006) revealed that in India, girls

perceive their families more cohesive than does Indian boys, though the total difference is

not that much. Dhobal, (1999) stated that in new urban rural families in India, children are

influencers for their personal care products, financial products and educational products

while as they are buyer for the family toiletries and initiators or gatekeepers for the

purchase decision of household products.

Hence it can be concluded that children’s influence varies with respect to gender but

gender may no longer be as effective as it used to be, owing to change in family structure

and size (Flurry, 2007). Nowadays parents socialize their sons and daughters equally in

terms of displaying, communicating and the amount of time spent with them.

2.6.1.3. Order of Child: The children influence in family decision making varies with

birth order. However the studies on the impact of birth order on children’s influence in

family purchase decisions are limited. Churchill & Moschis, (1979) found a positive but

not significant relationship between birth order and family purchase decisions. Kagan &

Knight, (1977) and Roedder-John, (1999) revealed that first born child will have more

influence in family purchase decisions than late born child. Cotte & Woood, (2004) stated

that order of the child was an important covariate and reduced the error covariance helping

to explain part of the variance on innovation. Thus the necessity that the first born need to

congruent with parents, will result in to higher level of influence in family purchase

decision making. Jenkins, (1979) revealed that children from larger families will have

more influence on the decisions related to activity destination and money to spend. Thus it

can be concluded that larger families will allocate more influence to children and the first

born child will be accountable for higher level of influence than the later siblings.

2.6.2. Impact of Family Characteristics

A group of family characteristics have an important role to play on children’s influence in

family purchase decisions (Loudon & Della, 1993). These family characteristics have been

measured using; family income, structure, size and family type as under:



2.6.2.1. Family income: Family income is an important variable that determine the extent

of influence children have in the process of family purchase decision. Some studies have

found that children influence higher in high income families (Jenkins, 1979) or

economically sound families (Moschis & Mitchell, 1986). This is because of the reason

that parents in such families have enough money to accommodate their preferences

(Williams & Veeck, 1998). On the other hand the studies of Atkin, (1978) and Lee &

Beatty, (2002) did not found any positive relation between family income status and

children’s influence attempts. Beauty & Talpade, (1994) stated that children in high

income families will have more influence in family purchase decisions regarding the

selection of the type of stores to patronize (McNeal, James & Mindy, 1996). This can be

explained due to the reason that in high income families more parent–child interactions

take place related to purchase decisions, because they have more exposure to economic

world due to accessibility of funds (Word, 1974; Moschis & Churchill, 1978; Moore &

Moschis, 1979; Bian, 2002; Ying 2003).

There are evidences that children from low income families tend to have more influence in

family purchase decisions. Prahalad & Lieberthal, (2003) studied the development of low

income market around the world and revealed price sensitivity in the consumers of such

markets. Therefore these values get passed to children too, which makes the children of

such low income markets, price sensitive and additionally aware of the marketplace, as

reported by low-income parents interviewed by Veloso et al., (2008). Veloso et al., (2008)

reveals in their study that parents in low income families take their children to several

buying trips, because they don’t have any one to take care of them, hence they spend more

time in shopping environment. The study also reports that children from low income

parents make a few purchase requests, but maximum of it are full filled because such

parents value more these requests which are related to children’s low expectations of

having such requests full filled (Gorn & Goldberg, 1977). Gunter & Furnham, (1998);

Young, (1999) found that children in low income families make more purchase requests

because they are more frequently exposed to advertising than children of high income

families, hence tend to have more influence in the family purchase decisions.

Thus from the above discuss it may be concluded that family income have a significant

effect on children’s influence in family purchase decisions. However, due to the

anticipation of socialization process among the children from low income families



(Prahalad & Liberthal, 2003; Veloso et al., 2008), children from these families will

proportionately have more influence than their counterparts.

2.6.2.2. Family structure: Family structure conventionally refers to a group of members

who are linked by blood ties and mutual bonds of love and obligation. Berger, (2002).

Galvin & Brommel, (1999) defined family as a group of people who share their lives over

long periods of time bound by ties of blood or commitment, marriage, legal or otherwise,

who consider themselves as family and who share an important history and anticipated

future of functioning in a family relationship. Family members consist of a group of people

who have an emotional bonding, structurally commitment and interdependent interactions

and share feelings, thoughts, or behaviors (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2004). As a result of

such joint interactions, the family can symbolize a system in which all parts need to be

interrelated and interdependent to maintain balance (Yingling, 1995; Galvin & Brommel,

1999). If one part of the family changes, the rest is affected and has to adjust to reassert a

sense of balance (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2004).

Studies have shown that family structure has a significant effect on the level of children’s

influence in the family purchase decision-making process. Over the past two decades,

family structure has changed dramatically in most of the European countries (Koerner &

Fitzpatrick, 2002; Clarke & Joshi, 2005). India too has witnessed changes in family

structure, but still traditional joint household remained the primary social force in the lives

of most Indians (India netzone, 2011). The change in family structure has elevated the role

of children as influencers in family purchase decisions (Flurry, 2007), but the influence

children have in family purchase decisions varies across different types of families (Alam

& Khalifah, 2009).

Mangleburg et al., (1999) reports that children in some families are treated equally by their

parents, but in others, they are being viewed as subordinates to their parent’s power. The

magnitude of parent’s power is expected to be affected by family structure, which has

changed a lot from ‘intact’ family (2 biological parents and their dependent children) or

‘traditional’ family (Haskey, 1998) to single parent family or step-family (or blended

family), resulted as a result of individuals re- marrying and co-habiting with new partners

more frequent than single parent households (Brown & Mann, 1990). Thus it would

appear that three types of household patterns have emerged: intact, blended and single



parent household, all of which are likely to affect children’s influence in family purchase

decisions (Kaur & Singh, 2006).

The comparison of the two parent household with the single parent household structure in

relation to children’s influence in family decision making surprisingly shows that the

children from traditional families do not unavoidably have less influence in family

purchase decisions than children from single parent (Ahuja, 1993). It is basically the

perception of parents that constitutes the main differences. Single parents perceive their

children to have bigger influence than “traditional” parents (Ahuja, 1993). The other

difference is in the status of children in the family. Children from single parent household

are equally treated as adults and are informed about each purchase which rarely is seen in

two parent household (Flurry, 2007).

Mangleburg et al., (1999) and Kaur & Singh, (2006) revealed that children from single

parent household usually headed by females have greater degree of influence and are three

times more likely to shop with their families or alone than children from intact and step

families. This is because of the reason that children from single parent families are

assuming greater degree of authority and responsibility as a result of variation in

socialization with respect to family authority (Kaur & Singh, 2006; Flurry, 2007).

Thiagarajan et al., (2009) applied the role strain theory of Goode’s and revealed that single

parents have to raise their children by their own, so role strain is increased because of the

complexity of roles both as mother and father by the single parent. The accomplishment of

multiple roles by a single parent is difficult and hence parents time and again transfer

influence to their children (Ahuja & Stinson, 1993). Children in such families take over the

role other parent would perform and tend to care more about the house hold purchases,

may it be the product for his/her consumption or for family consumption (Norgaard et al.,

2007).

Ahuja, (1998) found in USA that there is scarcity of childcare, which result in single

parents often taking their children to shopping trips. This means that children can now

actively express their opinions on products and thus influences the parents purchase

decision process (Thiagarajan, et al., 2009).

Norgaard et at., (2007) revealed that children from single parents have many obligations to

full fill. Next to being at school for most of the time, various after school activities like

sports and music keep children busy. Hence their tendency to influence and willingness to

purchase decreases (Thiagarajan, et al., 2009).



Thiagarajan, et al., (2009) studied time constrain in relation to children’s influence in

family decision making. The study showed that single parents naturally raise their children

without the help of the other partner and hence they are exposed to more stress that their

traditional counterparts. Long working hours away from home presents less time for

household tasks like cooking and cleaning (Norgaard et at., 2007). Shopping trips have to

be coordinated around work, schedule can barely be planned in advance (Ahuja, Capella,

& Taylor, 1998). Due to time constraints the quick meal solutions such as fast food

restaurants are extremely popular with single parent (Thiagarajan et al., 2009). Moreover

single parents do not have time to look for deals such as in store promotions and coupons

and this all results in delegation of the authority to their children for family purchases

(Thiagarajan et al., 2009).

Cheal, (2002) stated that children from blended type of families quite often represent lower

socioeconomic groups and thus lack resources, which aggravates differences when

deciding on children in family purchase decision making.

2.6.2.3. Changes in family Structure: Several changes in family structure can be

witnessed in the form of rise in dual income families, frequent occurrence of divorces and

decline in the birth rate leading to lesser number of children in a family (Geuens et al.,

2002). All of these changes in the family structure have contributed a lot in children’s

influence in family purchase decision process (Alam & Khalifah, 2009).

2.6.2.3.1. Dual earning households: Shift in family set up from single earning family

structure to dual earning has resulted in to cash rich and time poor society (Van, 2000).

The important outcome of the shift in family structure has increased the workload of

parents resulting in the involvement of children in the family purchase decision making

process (Merckx et al., 1997). Particularly for women, the combination of professional job

and domestic responsibilities has led to increase in working hours (Bracke, 1997). In dual

income families it is expected that children became more responsible for adult tasks,

because of the parents professional involvement (Hahlo, 1999).

2.6.2.3.2. Divorces: Almost half of the marriages in Western countries result in to divorces

leading to increase in single parent households. Parental departure and break up had a

positive outcome on children’s shopping behaviour and on children decision making power

(Barber, 1992). Darley & Lim, (1986); Mangleburg et al., (1999) and Kaur & Singh,



(2006) studied that single parents frequently involve children in family purchase decisions

and the chances of conflict are less in such type of families than in two-parent families

(Smetana et al., 1991). The findings of this study were further supported by the study of

Ahuja, (1993), which revealed that children from single parent families always support in

adult tasks and take part in family purchase activities. However the findings of (Rogers &

Rose, 2002) were contradictory which showed that children whose parents have

experienced divorces exhibit aggressive behaviours and more parent-child conflicts and

fewer interactions.

Impact of single parent household on children was studied by researchers under two

theories: Social control theory and Control theory. Social control theory stresses that

children display deviant behaviour in single parent households as social control is

ineffective (Katz, 1997; Dunham, 1997; Zimmerman, 1997; Rogers & Rose, 2002). Family

is the first footstep in educating the children the values and norms, but when household

under goes through a transformation, the child looses the sense of values and norms.

Studies have shown that single parent household often deprive children from their rights

than as children would experience in two parent household. Every household outcome is

different, they varied among the gender of the child, assets, household income, education,

parent and child interaction and much more (Tinson & Nancarrow, 2008).

Control theory stresses the lack of supervision in single parent household. Parents interact

less with children in single parent households and children engage with deviant activities.

It has been seen that children from single household lack internal control and fail to

recognize appropriate norms. Further studies revealed that children from single household

tended to be antisocial and exhibited deviant acts (Elliott & Richards, 1985). During

parental separation children experience feeling of confusion and anger and reacted in the

same way, they might not have experienced earlier (Patterson, 1990). Peterson also

conducted a series of studies and revealed that disrupted family homes are related to

deviant behaviours of children. However studies have shown that strong the parent-

children interaction, lesser the children will exhibit deviant behaviour in such families and

more they get involved in family purchase decision making.

2.6.2.3.3. Number of children in a family: Number of children in a family also plays a

significant role in influencing the family purchase decisions. Wegnez, (2000) revealed that

in most of the Western countries birth rate has declined, which has resulted in to lesser



number of children per family. This decline in birth rate has improved the parental

expenditure on each child and thus increased the purchase power of each child. Study of

Geuens et al., (2002) publicized that lesser the number of children in family, more money

will be spent on each child, increasing the purchase power of each child. However the

findings of Ward et al., (1997) and Shen & Yuan, (1999) points that, all research results are

unclear on this matter. Mehrotra & Torges, (1977) and Dunne, (1999) studied the children

influence in the purchase decisions of cereals, chips and holidays and found that children

influence increases with increase of siblings in each family.

2.6.2.3.4. Sex-Role Orientation (SRO)/Family Type: According to Buss & Schaninger,

(1983), sex- role orientation of a family comprise the values and norms which are linked to

duties and responsibilities of each sex in a family and thus affects the involvement of a

person in family purchase decision making. Extensive research on SRO revealed that the

traditional sex-role orientation indicates husband’s supremacy in the family decision

making while as modern sex role orientation implies joint decision making in the families.

Holdert & Antonides, (1997) classified households on power and cohesion, in the modern

and traditional families. Tinson & Nancarrow, (2005; 2007) presented that in traditional

SRO, the purchase decisions are predominately taken by husband/father of the household.

Thus traditional SRO suggests a more autocratic role by the husband/father and the

decisions that are more dictatorial (Lee & Beatty, 2002). On the other hand in non-

traditional family or modern SRO, the purchase decisions are taken on the basis of

discussion and equality. Thus non-traditional SRO suggests a more comprehensive role by

all the members of a family and the decisions are democratic in nature (Lee & Beatty,

2002). Moreover the modern families are characterised by having shorter power distance

between parents and children, thus representing the importance of children in their family

purchase decisions (Holdert & Antonides, 1997; Tinson & Nancarrow, 2005).

Since SRO talks about the variation in norms of behaviour among family members,

researchers have compared role structure across cultures (Kaur & Singh, 2006). Moreover

SRO reflects the cultural values played by various members of a family particularly father

or mother, hence it can be used to find out the influence of the children in the purchase

decisions (Lee & Beatty, 2002; Kaufmann, 2005). Hempel, (1974) examined in England

and Connecticut the impact of children in family purchase decisions. The study revealed

differences across cultures and reported little contribution of children in family decision



making. Ward et al., (1986) observed the impact of children purchase requests on parents

in three different cultural setups ( United States, Great Britain and Japan) and found that

age differences hold through cultures and culture in itself plays an essential variable

determining changes in parent- child interactions linked to purchase decisions. Moreover

the study also showed that children from United States were more inclined to advertised

products than children from Japan and Britain. Parents were seen to pay response to the

requests of older children than younger ones and this holds true in all the cultures.

Researchers also compared pattern of consumer socialization of children in these countries

and found vast differences. Children from United States were found to be highly socialized

and acted as autonomous consumers while in Japan and Britain parents were seen to be

lenient towards socialization of children. Gaumer & Shah, (2004) compared children from

United States and Japan on the basis of television viewing. The study revealed that children

from United States are sceptical purveyors of advertising and are more stylish in evaluating

the television advertisements. On the other hand Japanese counterparts are more expert in

recognising the television advertisements. The study also compared the socialization of

children and found that differences existed across cultures (also proved by Rose, 1999).

Children from United States are more socialized to become independent individuals, while

as Japan, parents are indulgent towards children. Ross, Bush & Kahle, (1998) and Rose,

(1999) studied the attitudes of mothers towards advertising in United States and Japan and

revealed that American mothers hold negative attitude towards children’s advertising,

whereas Japanese mothers hold an optimistic attitude. Similar results were revealed by

(Mukherji, 2005) in India while studying the attitudes of women towards advertising in

rural India. She compared Indian, American and Japanese mothers and found that Indian

mothers have least negative attitude towards children advertising. The study also showed

that Indian mothers have least control over the television viewing of their children among

all the mothers taken for the study. The positive approach of Indian mothers towards

advertising was endorsed to the fact that ads were related with full filling the utilitarian

roles and educating children about the new products. Sundberg et al., (1969, as revealed by

Kaur & Singh, 2006) compared the family cohesiveness and self-dependency of children in

India and United States and publicized that American children perceived themselves free

and independent as compared to Indian counterparts. In both the cultures, mothers were

having power over daughters and likewise a converse was seen to hold true for fathers. The

impact of outside influence like peers and other family members was also seen to be high



in India. Even though the children lived in small family setup, they showed great family tie

ups and relayed on other family members like parents for decision making. On the other

hand American children were seen to be more open and self dependent for decision

making.

All though India has preserved its cultural norms and traditions, the family structure has

changed a lot owing to the tremendous influence from Western world. Compared to West,

as revealed by Ahuja & Stinson, (1993) and Mangleburg et al., (1999), India is

experiencing the rise in single parent family setup, in India family structure has under gone

a shift from joint family setup to nuclear family setup. In other words the families have

become modern SRO and thus decision making has become more egalitarian (Dhobal,

1999). Thus a shift in family setup/type and change in SRO has a great impact on the

children’s influence in family purchase decision making process.

2.6.3. Impact of Parent Characteristics

A group of Parent characteristics have an important role to play on children’s influence in

family purchase decisions. These characteristics have been measured using; parent’s

gender, age, occupation and education in a family as under:

2.6.3.1. Parent’s gender: Children’s influence in family purchase decisions has been

studied in various cultural settings like Singapore (Swinyard & Sim, 1987), Malta

(Caruona & Vassalo, 2003), Israel (Shoham & Dalakas, 2003) and Scotland (Thompson,

2003). No significant differences were noted on the opinion of children’s influence based

on parent’s gender. Jain & Bhatt, (2004) studied the impact of children in family decision

making in India, a country with vast differences in cultural dimensions and found a

significant variation in the parent’s (mother & father) perception of children’s influence

between rural and urban areas. The women (mother’s) in urban areas perceived children to

have more influence than women from rural areas, where as no difference were being seen

in men’s (father’s) perception. Same results were revealed by the studies of Madhu, (2005)

and Aroian et al., (2009).

2.6.3.2. Parent’s age: Parental age has a vital role to play on children’s influence in family

purchase decision making process. Jenkins, (1979) found a direct relation between parents

married life and children’s influence and revealed that longer the couple has been married,

more will be the involvement of children in family purchase decisions. The results were



further supported by the study of Foxman, Tansuhaj & Ekstron, (1989) who established

that children influence will be more in families having older parents. McNeal, (1992)

discovered that families dedicated to their career postpone children in initial stages but

have a great expectation for the arrival of new one at latter stage, hence give them more

importance and had a great respect for their opinions (McNeal, 2007).

2.6.3.3. Parent’s profession: The profession of the parent’s have a significant impact in

determining the influence of children in the family purchase decisions (Kaur, 2006).

McNeal, (1992) discovered that families enthusiastic about the progression of their careers

are more likely to yield to children influence. This may be because of the higher income or

by professional involvement. According to Jenkins, (1979) the amount of time spent away

from home is a significant explanatory variable for both the spouse’s perceptions of

children's influence. Beatty & Talpade, (1994) identified that guilt factor influenced more

where both parents were working, principally for traditional mothers. This was further

strengthened by the study of Lee & Beatty, (2002), who proposed that guilt may be

experienced while leaving home for work, and therefore allowed their children’s influence

in family purchase decisions. Beatty & Talpade, (1994) stated that parents delegate

authority when they are professionally involved which later was named by McNeal, (1992)

as “household participation”. Lee and Beatty, (2002) while working with mothers studied

the relationship between children’s influence in family purchase decisions and the decision

stages and concluded that children’s influence is more pronounced in the final decision.

2.6.3.4. Parent’s education: Educational background of the parent’s is positively

associated with the purchase involvement of children. Slama & Taschian, (1985) revealed

that children who belong to highly educated parents are more involved in the family

decision-making process than children belonging to less educated parents.

2.7. Impacts of Culture/Subculture

Culture is an interface between people and its adjacent surroundings (Hofstede, 2001). In

other words culture comprises of all the facets of society including; language, knowledge,

customs, religion, laws, work pattern, products and other artefacts, which make a society

different from others (Jain & Bhat, 2004). Culture plays an important on children’s

behaviour in terms of their influence in family decision making process. Majority of the

studies in this regard have been conducted in USA and a few in Sinapore (Swinyard &



Sim, 1987), Malta (Caruona & Vassalo, 2003), Israel (Shoham & Dalakas, 2003) and

Scotland (Sutherland & Thompson, 2003). Significant differences in children’s influence

in family decision making were being found in different cultural settings.

India has all together a different culture from West. Each region and at times each state

represent a different culture in terms of language, dress, diet, customs etc., (Pinto & Sahu,

2001). Jain & Bhatt, (2001) stated that various factors affect Indian culture and among

them value is the most valuable part of Indian culture which affect ones consumer

behaviour. India has diverse set of religions and among them Hinduism, Muslimism,

Sikhism, Christianity are the major ones. Indians believe in luck, faith, spirituality and

welfare for others, unlike the western culture who believes in hard work and materialism.

This makes Indian culture different from Western culture (Jain & Bhatt, 2001). Norms are

also another part of Indian culture and determine the individuals behaviour mostly related

to public appearance in terms of dress, behaviour etc., (Jain & Bhatt, 2004).

Hofstede, (1984) classified India in to a higher power distance, high masculinity, less

uncertainty avoidance and collectivistic society, which focuses totally on family loyalty,

integrity and unity. People in India consider others opinion important before purchase of

any product. They consume products for their personal preferences, based on their social

status and opinion of others (Wong & Ahuvia, 1995). Children in old traditional families

have no say in family purchases and remain adherent to a male ideology, follow the

patrilineal descent rule and have value orientations of families (Madhu, 2005). However as

a result of globalization and westernization, shift in family structure has occurred in terms

of rise in nuclear families and dual earning couples, increase in divorce rates and rise in

single parent households, delayed parenthood and hyper parenting (Soni, 2007).. This has

resulted in to newer generations of children moving up from joint families to nuclear

families. Moreover rise in children channels and repeated exposure to advertisements along

with discussions with parents has also contributed a lot on children’s power and roles in

families (Soni, 2007). Nowadays children themselves have developed in to confident

consumers who and marketers are aiming at them for marketing of their products. Children

have taken an important space in the society and are the centre of the universe in the Indian

family system and they can actually pull the parents to visit a market place time and again.

They not only influence in terms of the parental decision-making to buy certain kinds of

products, but they are also future consumers (kaur & Singh, 2006). Hence the complexity

of the factors distinctive to the Indian marketing environment such as the incidence of a



joint family system, dowry, large rural markets, etc. means that studies need to be planned

more thoroughly to ascertain the effects of all variables important in the Indian family

context. This will help marketers in proper understanding of the children purchase

behaviour and formulating various strategies related to their involvement in purchases of

particular product category.

2.8. Impact of Religion

Religion may be defines as “A socially shared set of beliefs, ideas and actions that relate to

a reality that cannot be verified empirically yet is believed to affect the course of natural

and human events” (Terpstra & David, 1991). Different studies have included religion and

studied its impact on consumerism and revealed that individual level of religious affiliation

affects the consumer behaviour (Evans et al., 1995; Pawlak & Defronzo, 1993; Cochran,

1993). Further the individual’s adherence to religious beliefs and values from early

childhood is directly related to the extent to which an individual is committed to its

teachings and reflects this commitment through his/her behaviour (Worthington et al.,

2003). Furthermore Hirschman, (1983) believes that religion affects an individual’s life,

governs the family size, level of education and the type of decision to be taken. A limited

number of studies have been carried in regard of children which could directly discuss that

the religious attachment has the power to be a valued predictor of consumer behaviour.

One of the earliest studies that studied the impact of religious membership on consumer

was by Engel (1976), who found a remarkable set of differences in buying behaviour

between Lutheran Church and Assembly of God denominations in Brazil. The study

showed that Lutheran Church members are more secular and show relatively minimal

interest in spiritual growth while Christianity has a considerable influence on the lifestyle

of the Assembly of God members (Engel, 1976, as cited by Patel, 2011). Hirschman in

early 1980’s conducted a serious of studies on the impact of religious affiliation on

consumerism and found remarkable differences in terms of store identification, evaluation

of alternatives and purchase decisions between the respondents affiliated with three

different Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism religions. Bailey & Sood, (1993)

surveyed the impact of religious affiliation on consumer behaviour of six religions (e.g.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Catholic and Protestant) and found a significant

differences in the buying decision making between respondents of different religious

groups. The study revealed that Muslims were found to be more impulsive and possibly

less informed during purchase decision making compared to Hindus, who were more



rational during shopping. Like Muslim counterparts, Catholics were found to be less

informed during shopping decisions, while as Buddhists were the only religious group in

the sample who exhibited shopping behaviour similar to the societal norms. Essoo & Dibb,

(2004) in a similar type of study on respondents from Muslim, Hindu and Christian

religions confirmed similar results and revealed marked differences in their shopping

behaviour. Fam et al., (2004) studied the impact of religious principles on the behaviour of

children form four different religious beliefs groups (e.g. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity

and non-religious believers) towards the advertising of four divisive product groups (e.g.

gender/sex related, social/political, healthcare and addictive products). The study results

demonstrated dissimilar attitudes towards these four divisive product groups. Further the

Islamic group was the only religious group among the all that found advertising of all four

product groups most offensive. Thus in short religion being a part of culture, influences

values system, beliefs and attitude which in turn influence the behaviour as a consumer.

Thus it is quite evident that religious affiliation and denomination can serve as important

variables for consumer segmentation.

2.9. Impact of School/Teachers

Although the research relating to the children consumer behaviour continuous to grow,

there has been a limited number of studies which could clearly discuss the role that

schools/teachers play in bringing the change in their consumer behaviour. A few studies

have tried to discuss the role the teachers in developing cognitive and social skill, but

failed to relate it to their consumer behaviour (Burchinal, 1999; Belsky et al., 2007).

Vartuli, (1999) described the impact of schools and teachers on children socialization

processes, but yet again failed to associate with the theory of consumer behaviour upon

which children base their marketing programmes. Aramburuzabala, (2013) viewed school

as a social platform and teachers as a social entity which influences their attitude, opinion

and value system. Wesley and Buysee’s study in 2003 gave a little hint towards

consumption pattern and revealed that education environment has altered the taste and

level of life style among children and has resulted in increased demand for clothes and

fashions like jeans, suit, baggy trousers and high-heeled shoes. In addition to this,

Woessmann, (2001) gave a clear opinion that teachers influenced their cognitive abilities

and learning mechanism and thus influenced their purchase decisions making power but

the teacher’s scope in influencing children’s purchase decision was restricted to text book



buying. Thus owing to the growing influence of children today in purchase decisions, it is

imperative to understand the impact of teachers and school environment on children’s

purchase behaviour and thus bridge this gap in literature accordingly.

2.10. Consumer Socialization of Children

Consumer socialization as per (Ward, 1974) “is the process by which young people acquire

skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the

marketplace” (Kaur & Singh, 2006). McNeal, (1993) refer it to as "consumer education" or

"consumer development". John, (1999) and Haynes et al., (1993) views consumer

socialization as the practice that happens as a result of cognitive and social developments

as a child passes through different stages of development i.e. perceptual stage (3–7 years),

the analytical stage (7–11 years) and the reflective stage (11–16 years). The last stage is

very important from consumer point of view as it is characterized by information

processing and social skills. Blackwell et al., (2001) believes that consumer socialization in

children occurs as a result of shopping with their parents, a phenomenon these authors call

"co-shopping”. Co-shoppers tend to be more keen about their children's advancement as

consumers and they “explain more to their children why they don't buy products”, which to

some extent “may mediate the role of advertising” (Blackwell et al., 2001). McNeal &

Yeh, (1993) judges that the process of consumer socialization starts in children while

accompanying their parents to stores, malls etc. In the beginning the children make

requests for their preferred products, but as the children grow older they start making their

own choices in the store. At the age of five most of the children make purchases with the

help of their parents and grandparents and by eight years they become independent

consumers (Kaur & Singh, 2006).

In recent years, children have acquired more knowledge, developed consumer skills and

have gained more influence in family purchases than before. Since many children come

from dual earning and one parent families, they have to take care of the house and time and

again have to do shopping. As a result of this, the process of consumer socialization starts

much earlier and much faster than it used to. Ekasasi, (1996). McNeal, (1992) identifies

the following stages in the learning process of children’s consumer development:



Stage 1: Accompanying parents and observing: This stage is characterised by children

accompanying parents and early interaction with the market place. Mothers usually take

their children to shopping places, where they make sensory contact with the shopping

environment.

Stage 2: Accompanying parents and requesting: This stage is characterised by children

accompanying parents and making requests either by gesturing, pointing or by making

statements to their parents when they see something in the store of their choice. In later

part of this stage, they make requests for specific products at home, most likely because of

the motivation by television advertisements.

Stage 3: Accompanying parents and selecting with permission: This stage begins when

child start walking (3–4 years of age) and is characterised by children accompanying

parents to shopping places, they practice their first physical contact as consumers by

choosing an article and taking it from the shelf.

Stage 4: Accompanying parents and making independent purchases: This stage is

characterized by children accompanying their parents, but making independent purchases.

This stage contributes to the child's understanding that the store owns the goods and money

is the medium of exchange.

Stage 5: Going to the store alone and making independent purchases: The last and

final stage is characterized by children’s development of consumer behaviour and

performing the independent purchases without parental help.

In short consumer socialization is how children learn consumption-related knowledge,

skills and attitudes through interaction with socialization agents in various social settings.

Such socialization agents include parents/family, peers, schools, and mass media. Among

the four agents, parents/family is the most available from early childhood, supporting their

physical and psychological development (Kaur & Singh, 2006). Children’s learning from

socialization agents might involve three processes: modeling, reinforcement, and social

interaction (McLeod & Chaffee, 1972; Moschis & Churchill, 1978; McNeal, 1987).

Modeling: This involves children’s watching and replication of agent’s behaviour. By

watching the others behaviour, children acquire new behaviour, become aware of the

consequences of different behaviors and learn new ways to merge various elements in their



existing repertories of behaviors (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Children’s modeling of

agent’s behavior is selective. The simple parrot-like replication of others behaviour can

happen during first two years of child development, but as he/she grows older, this

becomes very rare. Children’s modeling is expected to take place either in conditions in

which they are taught to copy/replicate, or in conditions in which the model’s actions tells

them how to make use of new material or behave in new situations (Maccoby & Martin,

1983).

Reinforcement: This involves either reward (i.e. positive reinforcement of desired skills,

knowledge and attitudes) or punishment (i.e. negative reinforcement of undesired skills,

knowledge and attitudes) mechanism used by socialization agents. When children are

rewarded for performing a certain behavior, they might retain the behavior to expect

further reward, but when they are punished for performing a certain behavior, they might

stop the behavior to avoid future punishment. This process is important for children to

develop their innovative behavior and attitude (Mischel & Mischel, 1976).

Social Interaction: While both modeling and reinforcement highlight how socialization

agents modify children’s development via their own behavior. At the same time children

are not mare receivers of socialization, they are active participants of socialization process.

The movement they are influenced by the socialization agents, they might also influence

the socialization agents. Social interaction is the shared or mutual influence between the

agents and the socialize. During this process, children not only act but react i.e. when

parents restrict children to watch television; children may abide watching (i.e. act) or may

tell their parents that they like the program as being interesting (i.e. react). Under later

situation, parents may enforce punishment or may give reasons, why not to watch too

much television and children accept the explanation. By this interaction, children learn the

fear of watching too much television and parents listen to children, evaluate their reasoning

and alter or amend restrictions (McNeal, 1987).

Mowen, (1995) presented a model on consumer socialization and revealed that consumer

socialization of children is an outcome of three important components, i.e. background

factors, socialization agents, and learning mechanism. Figure (2.7) gives the demonstration

of this model.



Figure (2.7) A Model of Consumer Socialization(Source: Mowen, J. C., 1995)

Background factors include the variables like socioeconomic status, sex, age, social class,

and religion. Socialization agents are those that directly or indirectly impact the

knowledge, skills and attitudes because of the persistent contact with the consumers. These

include the variables like media, family members and peer group. Learning mechanism

constitute the three important process like modeling, reinforcement and social interactions,

all of which modify the children’s behaviour either by watching and replicating or by

rewarding and punishment.

2.10.1. Consumer socialization agents

Socialization agents lay the foundation of influence that transmits norms, attitudes,

motivations and behaviors to the learner. The main socialization agents that impact on

children’s purchase behaviour are parents/family, peers, school and mass media.

2.10.1.1. Family as a socialization agent: Role of family as a socialization agent has been

confirmed over past three decades (John, 1999; Carlson & Grossbart, 1994; Hempel,

1974). Research on consumer socialization has shown that family influences both directly

and indirectly in consumer socialization and parents in the family play an important role

and impart their individual values about consumption in their children from early

childhood (Solomon, Bamossy et al., 2006). Hawkins et al., (2001) revealed that parents

act as main socializing agents and teach their children the consumer information

processing skills and knowledge by interaction, modelling and reinforcement. They

introduce their children to retail stores while they are still in their arm. They teach them to

use money by letting him/her to give the money to the store man. Moreover children learn

price sensitiveness and brand loyalty behaviours from their parents (Childers & Rao,

1992).

Darling & Steinberg, (1993) stated that socialization of children was a function of parental

style. A change in the parental style explains the differences with respect to the way



parents try to control children’s behaviour with power and sentiments at the time of

socializing them (Kaur & Singh, 2006). Parental style provides the main basis for

explaining the differences among parents regarding how they socialize their children and

incorporate the consumer knowledge and skills in them Grossbart & Stuenkel, (1992).

Childers & Rao, (1992) studied the family influence on children with respect to different

products and discovered that family influence was more for privately consumed luxury and

necessity (mattresses), but was less for publically consumed luxury (golf clubs) and

necessity (wrist watches). Moore-Shay & Lutz, (1988); Cotte & Wood, (2004) studied the

intergeneration influence of family on children and suggested that elder siblings and

parents perceived innovativeness has pronounced impact on the young children’s

innovativeness.

(Dotson & Hyatt, (2000; 2005) studied the impact of family structure on socialization of

children and revealed that children from single parent family go to shopping with his/ her

parent where they get a chance to acquire knowledge of shopping compared to children

from two parent family. Mothers have been found as main socializing agent in the early

stages of child decision making particularly the negotiation stage, but their influence

declines and become equal to other family members in the outcome stage (Lee & Beauty,

2002; Ozgen, 2003; Neeley & Coffey, 2007). Ross, ( 1967); Kakar, (1977) revealed that

mother in the family is main nurturer and coregiver, while as father (grand father if living)

is dominant and is obeyed with respect and fear. Socialization of children has also seen to

differ with the economic and social status of mother (Roshan et al., 1993). It has been seen

that children from professionally involved mothers had more exposure to shopping than the

children from part time or unemployed mothers (Haynes et al., 1993). Flouri, (1999)

studied the impact of maternal communication style on children socialization and revealed

that mother’s communication style alone was a reliable predictor of child’s level of

materialism, though father’s role has been found to be very restricted in consumer

socialization of children (Bakir et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2009).

Family influence in consumer socialization of children was studied by Marshall et al.,

(2007) and found social status of family had a role in consumer socialization of children.

Children from families with higher socio economic set up were found to socialize faster

than from low socio economic background (Moschis & Churchill Jr., 1978).

Ramu, (1977); Ronald, (1988); Roopnarine & Hossain, (1992) studied the imapct of family

on socialization with respect to Indian families and revealed that parents in India prepare



their children from earlier years for their eventual adult roles, in which males traditionally

stay with their parents and look after the entire family,while as females support their

spouses and look after household and children in family. According to a report by

McKinsey, (2007), India is expected to be the fifth largest consumer market by 2025.

Indian culture has undergone much more social and economic change in last two decades

than any other country (Dotson & Hyatt, 2000), also there has been a shift in the society

from joint family setup to nuclear family and rise in parental income. All this has

contributed a lot in kid’s power and influence in families, hence today the role of children

cannot be ignored.

2.10.1.2. Peer groups as socialization agents: Peer group is defined as a group whose

values and attitudes are used by a person as a foundation of his or her present behaviour

(Hawkins et al., 2006; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007) and peer group influence is defined as

the amount to which peers exert influence on the assertiveness, feelings and behaviour of a

person (Bristol & Mangleburg, 2005). Consumer behaviour of children aiming on the

adolescents is highly influenced by peer group (Campbell, 1969, as cited by Kaur & Singh,

2006). Hill & Tisdall, (1997) stated that peer connection offers chance for children to

obtain different types of knowledge and consumer skills. Harris, (2002) mentioned that

peer groups have even a stronger influence than that of parents, but it was disproved by

other researchers like (Berk, 2005). Peers offer a distinctive background within which

children develop social skills and cognitive talent (McGuire & Weisz, 1982) and play a

significant role in imparting the knowledge of style, brand, consumption pattern etc.

(Moschis & Churchill, 1978). Brown et al., (1986); Steinberg & Silverberg, (1986)

revealed that peer influenced more in early adolescence (14 yrs.) but their influence

progressively decreased as child approached late adolescence. Moreover it was seen that

children who were more closely associated with their parents and peers performed better

than those who received support from only one or neither.

Childres & Rao, (1992) studied the impact of peer group influence on children for some

products and concluded that peer influence was high for public products than private

products. However no difference was felt in the peer influence between publicly and

privately consumed products among older children (12 years to 14 years) (Bachmann et al.

(1993) Lavanche et al., (2003); Yoh, (2005) revealed, how peer influence shapes the

product purchase decisions of children and emphasized on products such as branded



clothes, fashion clothes and athletic shoes. The findings of this study revealed that peers

influence will be more on the purchase of athletic shoes than other items.

Peers groups support children in their purchases or consumption decisions and help them to

establish a separate identity quite different from their parents (Churchill & Moschis, 1978;

Moschis & Moore, 1979). Kiecker & Hartman, (1993) studied the peer group influence on

children’s shopping decisions and revealed that the perception of risk and doubt declines

and confidence surges while shopping with peer group. Earlier studies like Brittain, (1963)

also revealed the same findings that children spend more time with peers for day to day

decision and spend time with their parents for value based, long term and ethical decision.

Thus on the basis of above studies, it can be concluded that there is substantial difference

in the cognitive skills of children as the peer group influence is concerned. Children who

have positive peer influence produce more alternative solutions to the problems and are

less aggressive than children who are influenced negatively.

2.10.1.3. Media as a socialization agent: Kotler, (1994) defined media as a source of

communication channel that carries message without individual contact or interaction.

Media consists of broadcast media (radio, television, and internet), print media

(newspapers, magazines, direct mail) and electronic media (audiotape, posters). The most

important media used by marketers to influence children purchase behavior is advertising,

particularly television advertising because it gains access to them at much earlier ages than

other sources of advertisements can achieve, largely because textual learning development

does not happen until many years after children have converted to regular television

viewers (Moschis & Churchill, 1978; Mc Quail, 2000; Kaur & Singh, 2006). Studies on the

impact of advertising on children purchase behaviour have shown that advertising provides

a better means of socializing them that is ever more out of control of the conventional

forms of socializing agents (parents and peers) (Hill & Tisdall, 1997). Valkenburg &

Cantor, (2001) linked socialization to stimulus-response perspective and stated that

exposure to a socializing agent (advertising) stimulates their response of influence in

family purchase decisions.

McNeal, (1987) suggested that children’s socialization by media (television advertising)

produced three types of behaviours in children as; purchases, purchase requests or

antisocial behavior. When children have money, they may like to make purchase of the

desired products that are advertised on television without the permission of their parents.



Purchase requests made by children vary with respect to television exposure. Children who

had more high exposure to advertising requested significantly than those who had low

exposure. The impact of advertising on children’s behaviour may not always be positive.

An assessment of the impact of television advertising on children’s behaviour shows that

where advertising lays stress on children to make purchase requests to parents, the results

can be nasty conflicts between parent and child. “Many parents fear the socialization

effects of advertising, principally because the effects may conflict with their own goals and

desires for their children” (Grossbart & Crosby, 1984). Other results may be distress

among the children when requests are deprived of. It does emerge, that such advertising

may actually result in considerable antisocial behavior among family members and among

peers.

Rossiter, (1979, as quoted by Kaur & Singh, 2006) showed that the impact of advertising

on children behaviour produces three types of effects; Cognitive, affective and behavioural.

Studies on cognitive effect discussed the children’s skills to discriminate between a

commercial and a television programme and their ability to comprehend the intent of

advertising (Blosser & Roberts, 1985; Rossiter & Robertson, 1976, cited by Valkenburg,

2000). Most of these studies have used Paget’s model (1965) of cognitive development.

Children at Paget’s preoperational stage (2-7 yrs.) respond to commercials in a different

way than children at concrete operational stage (7-12 yrs.). Children in the concrete

operational stage are mature enough to distinguish between a television commercial and a

normal television programme (Ward et al., 1972; Robertson et al., 1974, as cited by

Valkenburg, 2000). Studies on affective effects reveal that children’s response to

commercials gradually decreases as they proceed to concrete operational stage (Ward et al.,

1972, as cited by Valkenburg, 2000). Studies on behavioural effects discuss the extent to

which children get persuaded by the commercials and are measured by the requests

children are making for the purchase of products while shopping with their parents (Galst

& White, 1976, as quoted by Kaur & Singh, 2006).

Studies on children knowledge and understanding of advertising have shown that children

in their earlier stages of television viewing do not differentiate between a commercial and a

programme (Stephens & Stutts, 1982; Blosser & Roberts, 1985). Most children below the

age of 4-5 years are not aware about the concept of commercials (Ward, Reale & Levinson,

1972, as quoted by Kaur & Singh, 2006) and below the age of 7-8 years do not properly

understand the persuasive intent of ads and tend to be egocentric (Carroll, 1984). Boush,



Friestad & Rose, (1994) in a study on children found that the most common persuasive

strategy used in advertising is to associate product with fun and happiness, rather than

giving any product related information. Children view advertising as entertainment (e.g.,

“commercials are funny”) or as a form of unbiased information (e.g., “commercials tell

you about things you can buy”) and get easily carried away. Children’s understanding of

advertising grows after the age of 8-10 years and hence they develop positive attitude

towards advertising (John, 1999). Boush et al., (1994) stated that children in young

adolescence display doubtful predispositions towards advertising and as they steps in to

adolescence, they gain more knowledge about the different tactics used by marketers and

hence become sceptical of advertising (John, 1999). Moschis & Churchill, (1979) also

revealed the same results that in late adolescence children tend to be mature and develop

resistance to persuasive intent of advertising. Boush, Friestad & Rose, (1994); Friestad &

Wright, (1994) researched on children’s knowledge of advertising tactics and appeals and

showed that the understanding of tactics and appeals emerges much later in the

developmental cycle as children approaches early adolescence (11–14 years of age). Later

on Moore-Shay & Lutz, (1997) conducted in-depth interviews with second grade (7–8

years of age) and fifth grade (10–11 years of age) children and revealed similar results. The

study showed that younger children associated to advertisements mostly as a means of

product information, assessing specific commercials based upon their liking of the

advertised product. In contrast, older children viewed advertisements in a more logical

nature, often emphasizing on creative content and execution.

Attention paid to advertisements has also been found to be associated to the apparent

truthfulness of advertising. Children who perceive advertising to be positive pay more

attention than those who do not. Chan, (2001). Mizerski, (1995) establish that adult-

oriented product trade characters were also readily recognized by children even in young

age. Corn & Florsheim, (1985) studied the effect of adult commercials on children and

found that there is no effect of such exposures but that it is mainly a function of the product

category advertised. However the study of Mallalieu et al., (2005) concluded that children

born in 1990 appear to have much developed cognitive skills and differentiated

commercials from programs and understood the intent of advertising to a for greater extent

that those children reported by earlier studies(Goldberg et al., 1978; Boush et al., 1994).

Certain new advertising tactics like inclusion of certain characters and celebrities also

proved essential in shaping children’s views for advertised products (Dotson & Hyatt,



2005). Exposure to identical version of ads, one with a celebrity endorser and one without

a celebrity endorser revealed that children preferred products with celebrity endorser

(Atkin & Block, 1983; Ross et al., 1984; Dotson & Hyatt, 2005). Study of Atkin, (1978)

discovered that premium offers are also important in shaping children’s consumer

behaviour and found in his study that children in a supermarket made more requests for

cereals because they were influenced by premium offers. One more study done in this

regard indicated that commercials offering premiums remained additionally persuasive

than commercials containing a popular programme character (Miller & Bush, 1979).

Frequency of television watching also acted a key predictor of children’s consumer

behaviour in the supermarkets (Galst & White, 1976; Atkin, 1978). Buijzen & Valkenburg,

(2000) conducted a research on Dutch children and stated that children purchase requests

were directly related to television viewing. Also cross cultural studies comparing children

from Japan, United States and England revealed positive results for children demands

regarding merchandise advertised on television (Robertson, Ward, Gatignon & Klees,

1989).

Though Advertising has turned to be a main determinant of children’s consumer behaviour,

other factors have also been found to influence children’s purchase requests (Valkenburg,

2000). Valkenburg, (2000) found the impact of gender of children on purchase requests

for advertised products; Boys revealed persistency than girls in their purchase requests

(Ward, Wackman, 1972, as cited by Valkenburg, 2000). Gorn & Goldberg, (1980) related

the remembrance of an advertisement with the product category and exposed that half of

the children remembered ads for products such as toys, cereals and ice creams (Gorn &

Goldberg, 1977; 1980). Resnik & Srern, (1977) ; Gorn & Gibson, (1978) exposed that

brand preferences can also be manipulated by even a single exposure to a commercial and

improved preference for advertised brands over other rival brands are also an outcome of

frequent exposure ( Gorn & Goldberg, 1982)

Nowadays with the advancement in new media, new innovative commercial practices are

now being directed to children. Marketers are now using internet, as 48% of 8-18 year old

are linked to internet access, 40% of 2-7 year used to be on line and 19% of 8-13 years

reported visiting a website on the previous day (Roberts, Foehr, Rideout & Brodie, 1999).

Thousands of children oriented websites have come in to existence and many are laden

with commercial promotions (Austen, 1999; Montgomery & Pasnik, 1996). Hansell &

Harmon, 1999; Montgomery, 2001) stated that one of the distinctive features of marketing



to children on internet is that the boundaries between commercial and non-commercial

content are blurred if not absent entirely.

Studies on the impact of media on children’s consumer behaviour in India are limited.

George, (2003) stated that children in India watch television and prefer it to reading. A

latest survey by Cartoon Network’s on Indian children revealed that children’s watching of

television supersedes that of all other forms of media like news paper, radio, etc. (Nikhil

Pahwa, 2011). AC Nielson publicized that on an average an Indian child watch’s television

for three hours on weekdays and 3.7 hours on weekends and the time spent in front of

television increases with age of the child (Mittal et al., 2010). Figure (2.7.1.3.) shows the

frequency of contact to different media’s among the children of up to 14 years in all India

market.

A study conducted by Media Consumer Insights division of communication services major

Group M revealed that advertising influenced the Indian children the most with 77 percent

(%) respondents claiming that the television advertising as a key influencer. Hence,

marketers are looking at this market as a massive empire and targeting them. (Mittal. et al.,

2010). Peterson, (2005); Mukherjee, (2006) mentioned that children segment in India is

emerging as a most influential market and therefore is a key focus area for many marketing

strategies. Equipped with excess of information and entertainment alternatives, they now


Figure (2.7.1.3) Media Consumption Habits of Indian Children

http://www.medianama.com/author/nikhil/

http://www.medianama.com/author/nikhil/


persuade their parents for their purchase alternatives. Table (2.7.1.3.) shows the growth of

Indian advertising industry a survey done by India Entertainment and Media Outlook 2011.

Growth of the Indian advertising industry in 2006-10

INR billion 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 CAGR %

Television advertising

% change

66.2

17.8

78.0

7.9

84.2

5.7

89.0

14.0

101.5 11.3

Print advertising

% change

78.0 94.0

20.5

103.5

10.1

100.0

-3.4

113.5

13.5

9.8

Radio advertising

% change

5.0 6.9

38.0

8.3

20.3

9.0

8.4

10.8

20.0

21.2

Internet advertising

% change

1.6 2.7

68.8

5.0

85.2

6.0

20.0

7.7

28.3

48.1

OOH

% change

10.0 12.5

25.0

15.0

20.0

12.5

-16.7

14.0

12.7

8.8

Total 160.8 194.1 216.0 216.5 247.5 11.4

% change 20.7 11.3 0.2 14.3

From the above figures, we can imagine how fastest this industry is growing and how

marketers are using advertising targeted through different media’s to kindle the desire of

product purchase decision in children.

Today due to repeated exposure to different television advertisements, children have

become more careful (Dhiman, 2005). This is due to development in the cognitive

understanding and hence they have turned to respond to different ads in a mature way

(Kaur & Singh, 2006). kapoor & Verma, (2005) in a comprehensive study in Delhi,

investigated the children’s understanding of television advertising and stated that children

as young as six years could understand the purpose of television ads and can easily

distinguish a commercial from a programme. According to media analysis “Ad recall

among kids is much higher than adults, simply because they are quite active viewers as

against adults who are largely becoming passive T.V. consumers” Says Sandeep Tarkas,

CEO Media Direction. At present children not only remember ads, but even do the jingles

that go with them (Mittal et al., 2010).


Table (2.7.1.3) Growth of the Indian advertising industry in 2006-10(Source: India Entertainment and Media Outlook 2011)


2.10.2. Negative effects of advertising on children

There are a number of studies which discuss the negative effect of advertising on children.

One set of studies discusses that advertising affects children’s value system, socialization,

gender stereotypes, etc. (Lvovich, 2003; Moses & Baldwin, 2005) and other set of studies

discusses that advertising affects children’s food choice and eating habits (McGinnins et

al., 2006). Children seeing a lot of ads for liquor, wine, beer and cigarettes, too confess that

it aggravates them to drinking and smoking. Alcohol-related problems have flourished

amongst teens in recent years and have caused many negative consequences such as gang

rape, thefts, robbery, and murder, indiscipline and suicidal deaths. Fast food ads targeting

children heavily promotes unhealthy and mall nutritious food like instant food, junk food

and sachet packed food. Diabetes, obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs),

gall bladder ailments, cancer, psycho-social problems, breathlessness, sleep disorders,

asthma, arthritis, weak bones and reproductive hormone abnormalities have now become a

great concern. Based on these facts, policy measures need to be undertaken in recent times

so as to protect children from such evils. Today we see many self-regulatory and legislative

control measures are in place that provides protection to children across the ad world.

2.10.2.1. Regulatory measures of advertising to children

Regulatory systems and procedures that deal with various aspects of advertising to children

have largely evolved in recent years as a result of children being exposed to thousands of

advertisement directed through; television, radio, newspaper, magazines, internet etc

(Valkenburg, 2000; George, 2003; Kunkel et al., 2004). The most commonly employed

advertising control procedures are self- regulatory procedures, which basically is the

control exercised by the advertising agencies itself and boosts the advertisers to create non

defective advertising messages. The other control method is legislative control/state-

regulatory policy system, which monitors the overall system and ensures industry

obedience. This is achieved through sanctions, fines and reward system (LaBarbera, 1980).

The last control method is the community involvement, which refers to involvement of the

general public in advertising self-regulatory system (LaBarbera, 1980; Boddewyn, 1992).

2.10.2.1.1. Legislative control system: Refers to the protection of children from harmful

content that affects children’s innocence and naivety (Roch et al., 2004). India has precise

legal/ legislative regulatory system that governs broadcasting and consumer protection to



children. India constitutes 18.7 % of world’s kid’s population and in fact one third of India’s

population is under the age of 15 years. It means that there is an enormous potential in this

segment which is growing at the rate of 4% annually. Thus a potential market of 300 million is

accessible to advertisers and they are having a close watch on it (Kapoor, 2011). Thus

advertisers are trying to exploit young children market by advertising products that are not

always advantageous to their wellbeing. The legal regulatory system of India consists of

widespread acts/rules for children defence against advertisements as under:

1. Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 (MRTP Act), and the Consumer

Protection Act, 1986 (CPA), both contain the guideline for the deceptive advertising to

children. Under both these acts any false or deceptive advertisement amounts to unfair trade

practice (UTP). UTP, in so far as it relates to advertising, refers to any unfair method or

deceptive practice adopted for promoting the sale of the products (Verma, 2001).

The three advertising practices are particularly specified as unfair trade practices:

Making false claims and misleading advertisements.

Offering of bargain prices or pseudo discounts.

Conducting of pseudo sales promotion contests.

More over the legal provisions for the regulation of misleading advertisements are also

contained in Objectionable Advertisements Act, 1954.

2. Young Act deals with any advertisements through print media. Thus advertising any

harmful publication which is horrible in nature and which can corrupt a child in whose

hands it might fall, by encouraging the child to act differently is punishable up to six

months imprisonment.

3. IT act deals with penalising any harmful publication or transmission of any message

which is salacious to children and which can corrupt the minds of children in any way.

Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 deals with advertisements related to children

and lays the guidelines that; all the advertisements shown on television should not

denigrate children, should not contain any vulgar scenes or any explicit language or any

indecency that can be harmful to children (Sharad Vedehra, 2010).

In addition to all such acts, Information and Broadcasting Ministry government of India

along with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) lays the rules for advertising

to children. In 2006, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry set up a 30-person

committee who expressed to rewrite the advertising codes for the Cable Television Act and

its Rules, and to develop a mechanism to enforce the codes, a process that was on-going as

of April 2006. The codes developed by the committee were primarily adapted from the



United Kingdom’s Ofcom codes, with specific sub-sections on children and food

advertising (GI Pereira, personal communication, 2006).

Recently in 2009, Information and Broadcasting Ministry framed a nine member task force

to formulate a decision on setting up a separate body to regulate the broadcasting sector

called Broadcasting Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI). This task force have the

members from both governments as well as from television industry such as Indian

Broadcasting.

2.10.2.1.2. Self-regulatory system: Self-regulatory system states the regulation by Industry

itself. In India after continued criticism of advertising to children, advertisers have

formulated self-regulatory systems to ensure the delivery of true and accurate content to

children. But still the regulatory approach towards advertising to children in India is not

structured like developed countries. The self-regulatory monitoring body in India is the

Advertising Standards Council of India which was set up in October 1985- by media

owners, advertisers, advertising agencies and allied professionals like consumer

researchers, film makers, processors etc. and regulates the content of advertising in

accordance to consumer interest. Unlike developed countries there is no separate code for

advertising to children in India, but chapter (111) of the code contain provisions against the

advertising and promotion of products which are damaging, unsafe and which can exploit

vulnerability of the children (Advertising Standards Council of India, Dec. 2009). Part 2 of

chapter (111) states that advertisements to minors should not contain any thing, whether in

illustration or otherwise, which might result in their Physical, Mental or Moral harm which

exploits their vulnerability (Advertising Standards Council of India, Dec. 2009).

In 2007 necessity was felt to control the content going the public to guarantee conformity

with acceptable contemporary community standards so as to protect the exposed segments

of society from dangerous media exposure. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

suggested the Broadcasting Service Regulation Bill, 2007 and the associated Content code

– aka Self-Regulation rules/guidelines for broadcasting sector. Later on in 2008 Ministry of

Information and Broadcasting proposed before the Delhi High Court the guidelines of self-

regulation of content for broadcasting sector that proposed a two-tier set up to be run by

broadcasters, with the aim of being stick to the guidelines of Cable Television Net Work

(Regulation) Act, 1995 (Chakraborty, 2008).This proposed two-tier set up is as under:

First tier of self-regulation- At BSP level &



Second tier of self-regulation- At Industry Level

First tier of self-regulation- At BSP level

1. It shall be the key concern of each BSP to certify agreement with the certification of the

rules prescribed under the Cable Television Net Work (Regulation) Act, 1995.

2. Every BSP need to have its own mechanism to obey with the certification rules

including:

a. Appoint one or more Content Auditors of required experience and qualification.

b. Each BSP need to provide the information and details of its Content Auditors on its web

site for information to general public.

c. Information and details need to be provided to MID and BRAI who will post that

information on their respective websites.

d. Such person/s shall also be contact points for any feedback, complaints etc. from the

general public regarding the content violation.

e. The Chief Auditor of each channel shall be the responsible person for final decision to

accept or modify the guidance of Content Auditors.

Second tier of self-regulation- At Industry Level

Central Government or BRAI may allow Industry-segment level organisation to set up

their individual Broadcasting Consumer Complaint Committees (BCCC) in order to

provide a self-regulation mechanism to the industry and a complaint redressel mechanism

to the viewers and listeners against the alleged violation of the Certification Rules. Such

BCCC’s consists of professional experts with suitable representation from relevant

industry segments, consumers or any other civil society organisation as well as eminent

person with legal or regulatory experience, to umpire on public demands or complaints.

Such BCCC’s may be set up in respect of content in the areas of Broadcasting of Films,

Broadcasting of Advertisements and Broadcasting of Programs (Government of India

Electronic Media Monitoring centre: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2008).

o Broadcast of Films: The Cinematograph Act recommends that all the films shall be

shown and certified by Central Broad of Certification (CBFC). This CBFC endorses

that whether the film is suitable for viewing by children or any one keeping in view the

content of the film Confederation of Indian Industry: Report, 2008).



o Broadcast of Advertisements: Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) has

already a Consumer Complaint Committee (CCC), which has developed advertising

code to be followed by all advertisers. It will be the responsibility of BSP to have its

Content Auditor preview each ad to certify that its content comply with the ASCI code

Confederation of Indian Industry: Report, 2008).

o Broadcast of Programs: The Central Government have nominated the below

mentioned bodies to set up Consumer Complaint Committees on the lines of CCC of

ASCI so as to develop their own respective mechanism for preview of content as well

as adjudicate on the public complaints within the prescribed time (Confederation of

Indian Industry: Report, 2008).

1. Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF): for the television channel operators broadcasting

their channels on cable & satellite/DTH/Mobile Phone etc. networks.

2. News Broadcasting Association (NBA): for News & Current Affairs Broadcasters

3. Multi Service Operators Alliance (MSO Alliance): for the Multi Service Operators.

4. Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI): for the Local Cable Operators who may

obtain or create their own content and transfer it as their own video/radio/cable channels in

their respective cable TV networks, in addition to re-transmitting television broadcaster’s

channels.

5. Prasar Bharati: for Doordarshan and All India Radio. Prasar Bharati may set up an

internal complaint redressel body on the lines of CCC of ASCI.

Content Certification Rules 2008

The 2008 rules replaced the present or existing Advertising Codes and Programming

Codes present in the Cable Television (Regulation) act (1995). These Rules categorised the

Programs in to “U”, “U/A,” “A” and “S”. Categorisation of programme indicated

regulation of programme according to theme, subject matter treatment and audio visual

depiction appropriate for the four categories of U, U/A, A and S (Confederation of Indian

Industry: Report, 2008).

Category U: These programs are appropriate for all ages and suitable for unrestricted

viewing.

Category U/A: These programs are unsuitable for children under 12 years of age as such

type of programs contain material inappropriate to children.



Category A: These programs are suitable for mature audience only. Such types of

programs are unsuitable to children under 18 years of age.

Category S: Programs under special category on scientific or medical subjects are

restricted to any members of any profession like doctors, engineers etc.

Broadcast Service Providers shall certify that all the programs are categorised as above and

shall broadcast any category of programme in accordance with the scheduling set out as

below in table (2.7.2.1.2a).

Category of Program Scheduling of program

Categories “U” & “S” At all times

Category “U/A” 8:00 pm to 4:00 am

Category “A” 11:00 pm to 4:00 am

The comprehensive guidelines with respect to theme, subject matter treatment and audio

visual depiction with respect to advertising have been recommended in the following

matter as given in table (2.7.2.1.2b).

Theme : Advertising

Subject Matter Treatment: The subject-matter treatment of any advertisement under all

categories shall not in any manner:

1. Place any advertisement or promotional material as content in news or current affairs

programs without specifically acknowledging it as such.

2. Place in the content of any film or program, any advertisement or promotional material

of such products or services as are prohibited from being advertised or promoted or which

are considered illegal or anti-social or harmful.

3. Threaten the security of children or create in them any interest in unhealthy practices or

show them begging or in undignified or indecent manner.

4. Make unproven claims about the impact of its products or services on individuals,

events, society or nature, including environmental impact.

5. Use a situation, performance, or style reminiscent of a program in a way that might

confuse viewers as to whether they are watching a program or an advertisement.

6. Promote, glorify or justify social evils such as child marriage, dowry, bigamy, son

preference, etc.


Table (2.7.2.1.2a) Categorization of the Television Programs as per Content Certification Rules 2008 (Source: Confederation of Indian Industry: Report, 2008)


7. Refer to an advertisement in a way that might lead viewers to believe they are watching

a program.

8. Violate the code for self- regulation in advertising as adopted by Advertising Standards

Council of India (ASCI), and as may be modified from time to time.

Audio-Visual Presentation: The audio visual presentation of any content will be given in

a responsible and aesthetic manner, subject to the condition that the following shall not be

included in all categories (U, U/A & A) below:

a) Compare an advertisement with a program in such a way that not more than 20% of the

screen is used to carry captions, static or moving images alongside the program.

b) Place in the content of any program, any advertisement or promotional material of such

products or services as are banned from being advertised or promoted, or which are

considered illegal or anti-social or harmful.

2.10.2.1.3. Control Systems: In addition to regulatory framework, there is a proper control

system that keeps vigilance on all types of advertisements targeting children. The

advertising Standards Council of India has also made provisions for community

involvement and established Consumer Complaint Council where consumers can lodge the

complaints. This council is heart and soul of ASCI and regularly monitors and boosts the

public’s confidence in advertising. This Consumer Complaint council is an independent

body that is composed of renowned persons not linked with advertising (such as lawyer,

doctor, journalist, teachers, technical expert’s consumer activities etc.) and its 9 members

are from industry (advertiser, media, ad agencies and allied professionals). After receipt of

a complaint containing the copy of print Ad/promotion material provided by complainant,

the council admits the complaint and demands the advertiser to deliver comments in

respect of the complaint. The council gives the advertiser 2 weeks for response, from date

of receipt of ASCI letter. Failure to the council’s guidelines, the adviser is liable to action

(advertising Standards Council of India, 1999).

Thus based on the above discussion, it seems India has well developed self and legal

regulatory measures against advertising to children, but still they are being bombarded with

lot of advertisements. Hence there is an urgent need of more and more public involvement

in self- regulatory systems so as to safeguard children against the bulk of advertisements

targeting them.


Table (2.7.2.1.2b) The Comprehensive Guidelines with respect to theme(Source: Confederation of Indian Industry: Report, 2008)


2.11. Impact of Family Communication Environment

According to Infante, Rancer & Womack, (1997), communication traits are the subsets of

behavioural traits and are described as the justification of “enduring consistencies and

differences in individuals‟ message-sending and message-receiving behaviour”. Thus it is

very necessary to know, how these traits are formed in order to understand the individual

tendency during communication process.

Bandura, (1977) came up with social learning theory, which provided a deep insight on

how individuals learn to communicate in a social framework. This theory discussed that

individuals learn from one another. According to this theory, the environmental

experiences influence the individual’s trait formation. Bandura stated that individuals are

often reinforced from modelling the behaviour of others, environment help in reinforcing

the modelling. In order to incorporate the role of cognitive power in learning process,

Bandura, (1986) modified his social learning theory to social cognitive theory, which

discussed that individuals learn from observing others and by participating in social

environment.

One of the most important and predominant social environments is family. According to

Gecas, (1992), family is the primary socialization framework in which children learn from

their parents and therefore has been considered “one of the most pervasive forces” that can

affect individuals traits development (Chaffee et al., 1973). As the family communication

environment has an essential role to play for children’s behavioural development,

researchers began to study that environment. Chaffee et al., (1973) were first to develop the

concept of family communication patterns (FCP) and two major dimensions of family

communication patterns: socio-oriented and concept-oriented. Since then researchers

turned their interest towards the connection of family communication patterns on



communication trait development. Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, (1990) came up with different

dimensions family communication patterns: conformity-orientation and conversation-

orientation, respectively. Latter on the study of Elwood & Schrader, (1998) revealed that

conversation-orientation was an important and negative predictor of communication

apprehension at group and interpersonal level. Huang, (1999) discussed the affiliation

between family communication pattern and children’s personality traits like self-esteem,

self-disclosure, self-monitoring and desirability of control, social desirability, shyness and

sociability. The results of the study revealed that higher conformity-oriented

communication pattern was more likely to lead higher degree of shyness and lower self-

esteem, where as the higher conversation-orientated communication pattern was more

likely to develop an individual’s self-disclosure, desire for control, self-esteem and

sociability. Avtgis, (1999) explored on the relationship between family communication

pattern and the tendency to approach or avoid communication situations. The study

revealed that children from higher conversation-orientated families had more tendencies to

see communication as rewarding than children from less conversation oriented families,

who were seen to have a tendency to avoid communication.

Family communication environment sets the background for parent-child communication

related to consumer learning and consumption patterns and affects the apparent influence

that children hold in family purchase decisions (Moschis, 1985). Family communication

patterns (FCP) in the consumer research of the children’s consumer behaviour is composed

of two uncorrelated dimensions of communication structure (McLeod & Chaffee, 1972;

Caruana & Vassallo, 2003). The first one is socio-orientation, which refers to the type of

communication that produces authoritative and controlling type of families. According to

Caruana & Vassallo, (2003), in social orientated communication dimension, parents

monitor and control their children’s consumption behaviours, which are projected to

generate obedience from children and create pleasant and enjoyable environment at home.

Parents from this type of family structure persuade their children to keep away from the

conflict and to present compliance in conversations (Fitzpatrick, 2004). To avoid risk of

offending others, children are trained to be receptive to others views and not to talk about

expenditure activities (Caruana & Vassallo, 2003). Koerner & Fitzpatrick, (2002) revealed

that high socio-oriented families tend to be more traditional and hence its members support

family interest before individual interest. The second one is concept-orientation, which

refers to the type of communication that persuades children to communicate openly,



exchange ideas and build up their own views and to take decisions without regard for the

opinions of others. In such type of families, parents even discuss political and legal issues

with their children. Koerner & Fitzpatrick, (2002) revealed that high concept-orientated

tend to be more modern and hence the relationships outside the family are considered as

important as family relationships.

Family communication is likely to affect children’s influence in family purchase decision

making process. (Kaur & Singh, 2006). McLeod & Chaffee, (1972) developed a topology

that characterises parent-child communication structure. The topology was used for more

than two decades and classified families as having socio-orientation or concept-orientation.

On the basis of these communication patterns McLeod & Chaffee, (1972) classified

families according to whether individual’s response is high or low on social-orientation

and concept-orientation. These four family types are: pluralistic (low on social-orientation

and high on concept-orientation), consensual (high on both dimensions), protective (low on

concept-orientation and high on socio-orientation), and laissez-faire (low on both

dimensions) as shown in figure (2.8).

Figure (2.8) Family communication pattern(Source: McLeod & Chaffee, 1972, p. 85; Chan & McNeal, 2003)

Pluralistic Families: These are the type of families which are high on concept-orientation,

but low on socio-orientation. In these families, importance is placed on mutuality of

respect and interest. Parents from these types of families allow their children to express

their opinions freely (Geuens, Mast et al., 2002; Geuens, Pellemans et al., 2003; Caruana

& Vassallo (2003). Younger members of the family are encouraged to develop their

opinions without fear of punishment and make their decisions freely without a concern as

to whether or not it could affect relationships with their parents. Thus in pluralistic

families, children decisions equals to their parents or any other member of the family

(Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002).



Protective Families: These are type of families which are low on concept-orientation, but

high on socio-orientation. These families usually pressure on respect and social harmony,

and are not worried about abstract matters. Parents from such type of families believe in

male power, authority and supremacy in society. Fathers usually engage in masculine traits

(contention, competence, and prudence). Children from such type of families remain

submissive and obey parental orders and are dejected from expressing different opinions

and encouraged to keep harmonious relationships. Fitzpatrick et al., (1996) states, “these

parents expect boys to be less self-restrained and expect girls to be both self-restrained and

socially adept”. Thus because of the parental authority, children in such families easily get

influenced and persuaded by others outside the family rather than influencing others by

themselves (Fitzpatrick, 2004).

Consensual Families: These are type of families which are high on both concept-

orientation and social-orientation. Parents from such families believe in traditional gender

role orientations (Fitzpatrick et al., 1996). Men in such families enjoy leadership roles

while as females “define themselves in relation to the feminine traits of expression,

warmth, and nurturance” (Fitzpatrick et al., 1996). Overall consensual families pressure

both in relational harmony and open communication between parents and children. Parents

anticipate obedience from children and at the same time support children to explore the

world about them and also pay attention to their children‘s opinions (Moschis et al., 1986;

Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002).

Laissez-Faire Families: These are type of families which are low on both concept-

orientation and social-orientation. There is little communication among the parents because

both have slight in common. One parent of the family may be interested in open

discussions or initiate an open conflict, while as other may avoid it. As a result of this,

children are “exposed to inconsistency in both gender role models and conflict resolution

styles” (Fitzpatrick et al., 1996). There is little communication between parents and

children and children have no say in family purchase decisions and purchase decisions are

purely dominated by parents. Thus because of the lack of parent-child interactions,

children in such families are usually get influenced by social groups outside the family

(McLeod & Chaffee, 1972; Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002)



Previous research by Carlson et al., (1990) established a positive relationship between

pluralistic and consensual type of families as both score high on concept-oriented

communication patterns. Thus both these family types encourage children to develop

influence in family purchase decisions. On the other hand socio-orientation (laissez faire

and protective) communication patterns were found to be related to lower levels of child

influence (Rose et al., 2002).

2.11.1. Family Communication Environment and Children Influence

(Consumer Socialization Prospective)

Family communication is found to affect children’s socialization process (Kaur & Singh,

2006). Researchers began to study how family communication patterns are related to

children’s socialization and used two dimensions like concept-orientation and socio-

orientation. The results showed that concept-orientation communication environment

supports children to convey their opinions and thus encourages children to influence in

family purchase decisions. Conversely, socio-orientation communication environment

refers to harmony and control that parents have over their children and thus restricts

children's influence in family purchase decisions (McLeod & Chaffee, 1972; Ritchie &

Fitzpatrick, 1990).

Moschis et al., (1986); Carlson et al., (1990) studied the children consumerism in different

types of families and revealed that parents in different families vary from each other in

socio-oriented and concept-oriented communications and hence they are likely to differ in

the socialization of their children as consumers. As a result of variation in socialization

under different communication environments, children will exhibit different consumer

behaviour. Carlson et al., (1990); Fowler, (2007) revealed that parents in pluralistic

families always grant children more purchase freedom, yield more purchase requests and

consider children’s purchase views than parents in laissez-faire and protective families.

The study further revealed that laissez-faire parent’s communication styles were linked

with poorer outcomes for their children, such as: low in self-esteem, closeness, warmth,

than were children from pluralistic parent communication styles. Huang, (1999) linked low

in self-esteem to, “anxiety, depression, aggression, ineffectiveness, and social deviance”.



Therefore children with high level of anxiety belonged to socio-oriented families, reported

higher levels of Communication Appreciation (CA) than those who belonged to concept-

oriented families (Elwood & Schrader, 1998). CA refers to ones degree of one’s anxiety

while communicating with others (Elwood & Schrader, 1998; Hsu, 1998). In a similar type

of study Hsu, (1998) linked CA and parent characteristics (including parental receiving and

refusal, family cohesion, self-expression, autonomy, family conflict and family

communication patterns). The results of the study showed that children CA was negatively

related to mother’s receiving, family cohesion, self-expression, autonomy and concept-

orientation and positively linked to socio-orientation, where as it was positively related to

father’s FCP. Thus the overall results of both Elwood & Schrader, (1998); Hsu, (1998)

revealed that children from socio-orientated families tend to have more CA and exhibit

more levels of anxiety rather than children who belonged to concept-oriented family.

Koesten, (2004) linked Communication Appreciation with communication skills and

revealed that children who belonged to pluralistic families had low CA and thus

communicated more properly than children who belonged to laissez-faire families or

protective families.

In short, children from different communication backgrounds because of parent’s variant

communication orientation display different levels of participation and influence in family

purchase decisions. Thus it become visible that family communication environment, as a

family socialization process, presents some valid justification of children’s influence in

family consumption decisions.



2.12. Impact of Parental Style

Parents and their influences on the socialization of children have remained as an important

theme of most of the psychological and sociological researches. In other words, most of the

researches pertaining to parental behaviours have been started by the theoretical concerns

regarding the role of parent’s behaviours on children’s socialization. Behavioural theories

have also stressed on parental control and power to train their children what they must

learn. Developmental psychologists have also been interested in how parents influence

their children’s development and one area in this has been the study of parental styles

(Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Thus it can be said that the roots of research in parental style

lie in various disciplines, all of which defined parental style in terms of variations in

parental attitudinal and behavioural dimensions (Darling & Steinberg, 1993).

The impact of different parental styles on the socialization of children vary in a number of

respects, including how they try to control children's behavior and draw children's

obedience and how warm and approachable they are towards children. In general certain

parental styles have been found to be more operational in promoting children’s social and

instrumental competence than other types of parental style (Becker, 1964; Baumrind, 1971,

1978; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Yee & Flanagan 1985; Hart et al., 1990; Peterson &

Leigh 1990; Hauser et al., 1991; McFarlane et al., 1995; Clausen, 1996; Pawlak & Klein

1997; Biggam & Power, 1998). Researchers have generally used two approaches to study

the parental style in children socialization process as the dimensional approach by Becker,

(1964) and the typological approach by Baumrind, (1971). Later on a framework

integrating these two approaches was developed by Maccoby & Martin, (1983).



Dimensional Approach: Was put forth by Becker, (1964) and had its roots in previous

researches. Earlier researches on parenting behaviour have shown that parental styles are

believed to consist of different dimensions and variations in these dimensions are defined

as parental styles. These dimensions include; acceptance/rejection and

dominance/submission (Symonds, 1939); emotional warmth/hostility and

detachment/involvement (Baldwin, 1955); love/hostility and autonomy/control (Schaefer.

1959); warmth and permissiveness/strictness (Sears et al., 1957) and acceptance/rejection,

psychological autonomy/psychological control, and firm/lax control (Schaefer, 1965).

Becker, (1964) based on the prior knowledge conceptualized a three dimensional model

and suggested that parental style could be revealed by three main dimensions including;

warmth vs. hostility, restrictiveness vs. permissiveness, and calm detachment vs. anxious

emotional involvement. The warmth vs. hostility dimension signified the parental child

centeredness, liking, accepting and use of various explanations, praises and dependence on

physical punishment in discipline. The restrictiveness vs. permissiveness dimension

referred to parental use of strictness and firm implementation of demands regarding

obedience, care for family and approach towards parents and peers. The calm detachment

vs. emotional involvement talked about parent’s emotionality towards children and concern

for the child’s wellbeing. Thus on the basis of the performance of these dimensions,

Becker, (1964) classified parent’s in to eight different types including; Democratic,

Indulgent, Organized Effective, Overprotective, Authoritarian, Rigid Controlling and

Anxious Neurotic, Neglecting as given in Figure (2.9a).



Figure (2.9a) three dimension-model of parental style(Source: Becker’s 1964)

Both Democratic and Indulgent parents are revealed by warm and permissive dimensions,

but Indulgent parents are likely to be emotionally involved while as Democratic parents

tend to be calmly detached in relation to children. Overprotective and Organized Effective

parents are revealed by warmth and restrictiveness, but Overprotective parents are like

Indulgent parents who show emotional attitude towards children, while as Organized

Effective parents showed inclination towards calm detachment. Further exploration of the

Becker’s model reveals that both Authoritarian and Rigid Controlling parents are

argumentative and restraining, but Authoritarian parents are likely to be emotionally

involved while as Rigid Controlling tend to be more calmly detached. Anxious Neurotic

and Neglecting parents are revealed by permissiveness and hostility, but the former parents

are likely to be emotionally attached to children than the later who tend to be calm

detached.

Based on the above discussion, parental style is a linear combination of different

dimensions and researchers have tried to evaluate the relationship between different

parental styles and the children behaviour. Eastburg & Johnson, (1990) linked college

women’s shyness negatively with apparent maternal acceptance and positively with



apparent maternal psychological power. Paulson, (1994) associated children’s academic

achievement with the different parental styles. Bernardino, (1996) showed that children

codependency is notably related with parental styles. Darling & Steinberg, (1993) stated

that in comparison with dimensional approach, typological approach identifies parental

style as parent’s traits that present a background for the overall parenting behavior (Darling

and Steinberg 1993).

Typological Approach: Was put forth by Baumrind, (1968; 1971) provides a useful

framework in the examination of parental styles and has been widely acknowledge for it its

remarkable impact on the parent socialization research in the last three decades.

Baumrind’s parental style typology classifies parents in to Authoritarian, Authoritative,

and Permissive types. Authoritarian parents maintain low acceptance and high control over

their children. They are high demanding and controlling and use physical punishments for

non obedience. These parents are emotionally distinct from their children and show rigid

behaviours and maintain high control even if when child reaches to maturity (Baumrind,

1968; Carlson & Grossbart, 1988). Colpan et al., (2002) established that children from

authoritarian parents tend to have low self respect and lack impulsiveness.

Authoritative Parents know their own rights as adults, but at the same time acknowledge

children’s individual interests. They view rights and responsibilities of adults and children

as complimentary and try to maintain a balance between parent’s rights and children

development. These types of parents are very much involved in their children’s activities,

support verbal conversation and allow their children to participate and question parental

requests. Authoritative parents acknowledged children’s interests and valued children’s

autonomy but also exercised well-organized conformity. Like authoritarian parents, these

parents also set certain principles for their children’s behavior and use power and control to

direct their activities (Baumrind, 1971).

Permissive parents view children as having adult rights but little responsibilities. They

provide high level of liberty and autonomy to their children and do not hamper their

behavior if not it physically troubles them. They hardly implement or impose externally

defined principles; instead they consult with their children about policy decisions and give

clarification for family rules. These types of parents always try to avoid their exercise of

control and hence allow their children to participate in family decisions (Baumrind, 1971;

Carlson & Grossbart, 1988; Diaz, 2005).



Based on the above discussion, the main attention of this typological approach is the

general pattern, organization, or climate of parenting (Steinberg et al., 1994). Subjects are

frequently classified into groups with different parental style (e.g., Authoritative,

Authoritarian or Permissive), and then children’s developmental outcome is compared

among these groups. For instance, Baumrind, (1971) compared the social and emotional

behavior of preschool children from families with the three parental styles. Further in

Baumrind, (1978) clarified how parents with dissimilar parental styles help the

development of social skills in children and adolescents.

Integrative Approach: Ideally both Becker’s and Baumrind’s model of parental style

represent parental impact on the socialization of children. Becker’s model has its roots in

the prior researches on the parental behaviour, while as Baumrind’s model is empirically

derived by grouping parents with similar behaviours. Although the two approaches are

quite similar to each other to some level (i.e., Baumrind’s authoritarian parental style

matchs to Becker’s Authoritarian and Rigid Controlling styles, Authoritative style in most

parts relates to Becker’s Overprotective and Organized Effective styles), but there also

appears one striking difference. Table (2.9) gives the comparison of two approaches.

Becker, (1964) Baumrind,

(1971)

Parental Style Descriptions

Authoritarian and

Rigid Controlling

Authoritarian

Have very tight standards for children

behaviour; Do not support children verbal

exchange; Value obedience and favour

punishment of obstinate behaviour.

Organized Effective

and Overprotective

Authoritative

Have well defined standards for children

behaviour; Support children’s verbal

exchange; Value children’s requests, set

certain principles for their children’s

behavior and use power and control to direct

their activities.

Indulgent

and Democratic

Permissive

Do not enforce standards for children

behaviour; View children as having their

own rights; Provide children independence



to influence parents.

Anxious Neuroticand Neglecting

Do not have clear standards of conduct;

Give children higher levels of behavioural

freedom; Be rejecting and discourage

children’s emotional reliance.

Baumrind’s categorization of parental styles emerges to fit two dimensions; warmth and

restrictiveness, yet her three primary parenting styles covers only three areas; high

restrictiveness and low warmth (Authoritarian), high restrictiveness and high warmth

(Authoritative), and high warmth and low restrictiveness (Permissive). Even though she

talked about the fourth area of low warmth and low restrictiveness as Rejecting-

Neglecting, but she does not draw much attention to this parental style in her research

(Baumrind, 1967; 1978; 1980), possibly because in her early research, the attention was on

families where parents were relatively active in child nurture (Baumrind, 1971). In normal

family samples, the Neglecting parental style often emerges (e.g., Carlson and Grossbart

1988; Steinberg et al., 1994). On the other hand Becker’s model initially took two

dimensions; restrictiveness vs. permissiveness and calm detachment vs. anxious emotional

involvement dimensions (Becker, 1964). The reason for adding the third dimension is

likely that the most of the literature Becker analyzed was mainly from clinical settings and

concerned with examining children’s problematic behavior such as aggression, hostility,

socially withdrawn, and neurotic problems. These kinds of children behaviors relate more

with parent’s restrictiveness due to extreme anxious emotional concern about children’s

well-being than with restrictiveness due to disciplinary values (Mangleburg, 1992).

Consequently not all of Becker’s refined parental styles (especially Anxious Neurotics)

could be found in nonclinical settings (Carlson, Grossbart & Stuenkel, 1992).

In orders to assimilate the similarities of the dimensional and the typological approach as

well as overcome their respective weaknesses, researchers combined these two approaches

in order to generalize it to the regular family set up. Maccoby & Martin, (1983) were

among first advocates, who explained parent’s in terms of their placement on two

dimensions they termed responsiveness and demandingness. The responsiveness dimension

similar to (but not exactly) the warmth vs. hostility dimension, refers to the extent that

parents engage themselves in children’s activities and always remain supportive to children


(Table 2.9) Comparisons of parental style classifications


needs and demands. The demandingness dimension, similar to restrictiveness vs.

permissiveness dimension refers to the extent that parents direct their children’s

development by maturity demands, maintain a close supervision over their children and

believe in disciplinary actions if their child disobeys (Baumrind, 1991). According to this

classification system, parent’s high in both responsiveness and demandingness corresponds

to Authoritative parental style; parent’s low in responsiveness but high in demandingness

corresponds to Authoritarian parental style. Further, Indulgent parents are those high in

responsiveness but low in demandingness, where as Neglecting parents are those with low

in both responsiveness and demandingness (Steinberg et al., 1991). Figure (2.9b) gives the

demonstration of the four parental styles.

Figure (2.9b) An integrative model of parental style(Source: Maccoby and Martin, 1983)

2.12.1. Parental Style and Children Influence

(Consumer Socialization Prospective)

Role of parental style on children’s socialization process has remained a subject matter in

most of the psychological and sociological researches for decades (Kaur & Singh, 2006).

But in marketing, it is not until recently that researchers start to employ parental style in

the process of socialization so as to examine children's consumer socialization properly.



Carlson & Grossbart, (1988); Manchanda & Moore-Shay, (1996); Rose, (1999) are among

the front researchers who from time to time examined the relationship between different

type of parental styles and the children socialization and revealed that parental styles

present a theoretical basis for illustrating the variations among parents about how they

communicate consumer skills and knowledge to their children. Carlson & Grossbart,

(1988) applied typological approach and studied the impact of mother’s parental style on

their children socialization process. The study revealed that, mother’s parental style

provides a theoretical basis for explaining differences among parents regarding how they

yield to children's requests, permit independence in product selection and allow children to

co-shop. Manchanda & Moore-Shay, (1996) applied dimensional approach (by treating

parental style constant along three dimensions i.e., permissiveness, authoritarianism and

authoritativeness) and studied the impact of parental style on their children behaviour. The

study showed that authoritarian parents were more controlling and less encouraging than

both permissive and authoritative parents; hence permissiveness and authoritativeness was

positively related to children's socialization than authoritarianism. Rose, (1999) applied

typological approach with Becker's (1964) three dimensional and studied parental style and

its impact on consumer socialization of children. The results of the study revealed a

positive correlation between parental style and consumer socialization about expectations

for consumer-related skills and knowledge regarding advertising practices, interactions

about consumption, children's influence and involvement in family purchases, children's

purchase autonomy and parental restriction of purchase and media exposure.

More recently, Neal & Horbury, (2001) conducted a research on 53 undergraduates and

studied the impact of parental style on person’s opinion of their own relationship qualities

and their opinion of how other people relate to them interpersonally. The findings of the

study showed that the persons with authoritarian or permissive parents ranked higher in

self-intimacy abilities than those respondents with authoritative parent. The other finding

revealed that a person with authoritative parents has positive opinion of other’s intimacy

ability than those with either an authoritarian or permissive parenting style. Baldwin,

Mclntyre & Hardaway, (2007) showed that the optimism in children’s personality is the

manifestation of parental style. Gadeyne, Ghesquiere & Onghena, (2004) showed the

attitudinal and behavioral problems are affected by parental style. Yahaya & Nordin,

(2006) stated that the parental styles have a direct impact on children’s achievements.

Authoritative parenting style was proven to have good impact on their academic



achievements. The results of this study was later on validated by study of Turner, Chandler

& Heffer, (2009), who showed a positive correlation between achievements and the

parental style. Onder, Kırdok & Isık, (2010) showed that children’s career decisions was

also an outcome of parental style. The results of the study showed that children belonging

to authoritative and authoritarian parents are more decisive than the child’s of neglectful

and permissive parents. The study further showed that neglecting and permissive parents

do not support their child in their career decisions. Lin & Lian, (2011) revealed in a study

in Malaysia that children’s coping capabilities are directly related to parental style. Fathers

and mothers were see at parallel stage of authoritarian parenting where as mothers are

observed more authoritative then fathers. It was concluded that authoritarian style of both

father and mother and authoritative parenting style of mother’s associate with adolescent

coping capabilities.

Based on the literature survey, it becomes very clear that children from parental styles

because of parent’s variant styles display different levels of participation and influence in

family purchase decisions. Hence it becomes evident that parental style in children

socialization process presents some valid justification of children’s influence in family

consumption decisions.


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