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Children's Purchase Influence Attempts and Parental Yielding Author(s): Scott Ward and Daniel B.

Wackman Source: Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Aug., 1972), pp. 316-319 Published by: American Marketing Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3149545 . Accessed: 30/07/2013 02:41
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Children's
Parental

Purchase

Influence

Attempts

and

Yielding

SCOTTWARD and DANIEL B. WACKMAN*

Mass communication researchhas traditionally been concerned with relatively immediateconsequencesof mass mediause, such as attitude change. Considerably less attentionhas been devoted to second-order conseexposure,such as interquencesof masscommunication personalcommunication. This research examined such second-orderconsequences,focusing on the impact of televisionadvertisinteraction. we studied Specifically, ing on mother-child children'sattemptsto influencemothers'purchasesof various products and mothers' yielding to these attempts. Some previous researchhas examined relationships betweenmass media use, parent-child interaction,and For effects. adolescents' mass example, subsequent interaction media use has been relatedto parent-child and political socialization processes [2, 6]. Halloran and his associatesexaminedexposureto televisionand intrafamilycommunicationamong samples of delinBritishadolescents[5]. quent and nondelinquent Little empiricalevidence has been found on the extent of television advertising's influenceon intrafamily interaction and behavior. For example, while much commercial research attempts to relate mass media exposureto aspects of consumerbehavior,little effort has been devoted to explicit examination of parentchild interactioninterveningbetween media exposure and behavior [3]. Research on consumers'family decision making usually focuses on husband-wifeinteraction and is not concernedwith the influenceof children [4]. Some qualitative data indicate that mothers feel television commercials influence their children [8], citing the apparentformation of desires for various
* Scott Wardis AssistantProfessorof BusinessAdministration, Harvard University, and Research Associate at The Marketing Science Institute; Daniel B. Wackmanis Director, Research Division, School of Journalism and Mass Communications,University of Minnesota. This researchwas supported,in part, by a grant from the National Instituteof Mental Health. The assistance of Greg Reale, David Levinson,and Wing-HingTsang is gratefully acknowledged. 316

products. Parents resent the encouragementof overt attemptsto influencetheir purchases,although many mothers are said to accept television advertisingas a of course,does evil. Suchqualitative research, necessary not explicitly link media exposure to specific family processes. Berey and Pollay examined such processes in mothers' purchasesof children'sbreakfastcereals [1]. While not concernedwith mass media influences,the motherspurfound highly child-centered investigators chased their children'sfavorite cereals less frequently mothers.The child's assertivethan less child-centered ness was not correlatedwith purchaseperhapsbecause measurewas based on teachers'ratthe assertiveness which are probablybasedmore on peerinteraction ings, interaction. than parent-child The present study examined the influence of three variableson children'spurchaseinfluenceattemptsand parental yielding: demographics, parent-child interbehavior. action, and mothers'mass communication METHODOLOGY Self-administered questionnaireswere sent to 132 mothers of 5- to 12-year-oldchildren in the Boston from area.The mothershad beenrecruited metropolitan area service clubs for participationin another study. While attempts were made to sample differentsocioeconomic areas of Boston, the sample was skewed toclasses. ward the upper and upper-middle took about one hour to complete; The questionnaire women were paid a small amount for their participation. Some items asked the women to report on the behavior of one of their children, identified on the were received Completedquestionnaires questionnaire. from 109 mothers (83 %). Variousscales were recoded by summing items; items included in the scales and reliabilityestimatesfor the scales are presentedin the Appendix. Two kinds of analysis were used. First, age group differenceswere comparedby means and percentages
Journal of Marketing Research,

Vol. IX (August 1972), 316-9

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CHILDREN'S PURCHASE INFLUENCE ATTEMPTS

317

Table 1
OF CHILDREN'S TO INFLUENCE ATTEMPTS FREQUENCY PURCHASES AND PERCENTAGE OF MOTHERS' "USUALLY" YIELDING
Frequency of requestsa Products 5-7 years 8-10 years 11-12 years Totalb 5-7 years 8-10 years 11-12 years Totalb Percentage of yielding

Relevant foods Breakfast cereal Snack foods Candy Soft drinks Jell-o Overall mean Overall percentage Less relevantfoods Bread Coffee Pet food Overall mean Overall percentage Durables, for child's use Game, toy Clothing Bicycle Hot wheels Record album Camera Overall mean Overall percentage Notions, toiletries Toothpaste Bath soap Shampoo Aspirin Overall mean Overall percentage Other products Automobile Gasoline brand Laundry soap Household cleaner Overall mean Overall percentage
a

1.26 1.71 1.60 2.00 2.54 1.82 3.12 3.93 3.29 3.45 1.24 2.76 2.48 2.43 3.36 3.91 2.70 2.29 3.10 3.48 3.64 3.13 3.55 3.64 3.69 3.71 3.65

1.59 2.00 2.09 2.03 2.94 2.13 2.91 3.91 3.59 3.47 1.63 2.47 2.59 2.41 2.63 3.75 2.58 2.31 2.97 3.31 3.78 3.09 3.66 3.63 3.75 3.84 3.72

1.97 1.71 2.17 2.00 2.97 2.16 3.43 3.97 3.24 3.49 2.17 2.29 2.77 3.20 2.23 3.71 2.73 2.60 3.46 3.03 3.97 3.26 3.51 3.83 3.71 3.74 3.70

1.59 1.80 1.93 2.01 2.80 2.03 3.16 3.94 3.36 3.49 1.65 2.52 2.61 2.67 2.78 3.80 2.67 2.39 3.17 3.28 3.79 3.16 3.57 3.70 3.72 3.76 3.69

88 52 40 38 40 51.6 14 2 7 7.6 57 21 7 29 12 2 25.6 36 9 17 5 16.8 2 2 2 2 2.0

91 62 28 47 41 53.8 28 0 3 10.3 59 34 9 19 16 3 28.0 44 9 6 6 16.3 0 0 0 3 .75

83 77 57 54 26 59.4 17 0 11 9.3 46 57 9 17 46 0 35.0 40 9 23 0 18.0 0 3 3 0 1.50

87 63 42 46 36 54.8 19 1 7 9.0 54 37 8 22 24 2 29.4 39 9 16 4 17.0 12 2 2 2 1.75

On a scale from 1 = often to 4 = never. b 5-7 years, n = 43; 8-10 years, n = 32; 11-12 years, n = 34; N = 109.

for three age groups.'Here we were simplylooking for trends; no overall statisticaltest was used because no single test was appropriate,and a series of statistical tests of differenceson items might be misleading.2 Second, zero-order and partial correlations were computed to examine relationshipsbetween various independent variables and the dependent variables. Multiple regressiontechniqueswere not used because
x Analysis of variance to test for statistical significanceof age was not used becausesubjectswere not randomly group differences assigned to experimentalgroups. 2 Multivariateanalysis of variance was not appropriate. First, we did not have randomexperimentalgroups. Second, we did not expect that all the items in a scale would have the same age group pattern-as indeed they did not; however, multivariateanalysis of varianceassumesthat the patternof differences acrossexperimental groupsis essentiallythe same for all items.

we expectedthat there would be a number of interactions among the independentvariables; the additive regression model tends to obscure these interactions and also some zero-orderrelationships,dependingon the specific type of interactionswhich occur. On the otherhand,the smallnumberof casesprevented us from examining many variables at one time to look for second- and third-order interactions. Our analysis examinedtrendsand variableswhichmightproveto be useful predictorsin subsequentresearch.
FINDINGS Purchase Influence Attempts Mothers were asked to indicate the frequency of their child's purchase influence attempts for 22 products

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318 (Table 1). All were heavily advertised, but varied in price, frequency of purchase, and relevance to the child (direct consumption or use by the child vs. consumption or use by other family members). Analysis of marginal data indicated that children frequently attempted to influence purchases for food products, but these attempts decreased with age. Durables which the child uses directly were the second most requested product category. Mothers of younger children (5 to 7 years old) indicated frequent influence attempts for game and toy purchases, while mothers of older children (11 to 12 years old) indicated frequent purchase influence attempts for clothing and record albums. Across four product categories, purchase influence attempts appear to decrease with age.

JOURNAL AUGUST1972 OF MARKETING RESEARCH,

Table 2 shows relationships between the three kinds of independent variables and the two dependent variables. The various independent variables were relatively independent of each other, since correlations among them were rather low. Examining demographic predictors, essentially no relationships were found between the dependent variables and number of children in the family and social class. The relationship between age and influence attempts approached significance (r = -.13) and was negative. On the other hand, as revealed in previous analyses of means, a positive correlation obtained between age and parental yielding to purchase influence attempts. Thus, while parents may receive more purchase influence attempts from young children, they are more likely to act on them as the child grows older. Parental Yielding While many other parent-child variables may be important predictors of the dependent variables, conData in Table 1 indicate that across most product on television viewing are presumaflict and restrictions categories the older the child, the more likely mothers bly related to control parents may attempt to exert over are to yield to influence attempts, perhaps because children. The data indicate a significant positive relaolder children generally asked for less. It may also tionship between conflict and influence attempts (r = result from mothers' attributing greater competence in .18), suggesting that purchase influence attempts may making judgments about products to older children. be part of a general pattern of disagreement and conMothers were most likely to yield to purchase influence flict between parents and children-perhaps even a chilsame for food products products-the attempts cause of them. No relationship was observed between dren most often asked for. conflict and yielding. It seems that few parents "punish" their child by failing to yield to purchase influence Correlates of Influence Attempts and Yielding attempts. The correlation between children's purchase influence Restrictions on viewing and yielding were negatively attempts and mothers' yielding was positive and starelated. Thus the more restrictions parents place on a tistically significant (r = .35). Clearly, children who child's television viewing, the less they yield to his purask for products more often receive them more often. chase influence attempts. Interestingly, however, no However, since the correlation was not high, it is likely relationship obtained between restrictions and influence that some of the independent variables were differenattempts. Apparently, this form of parental control is tially related to these two dependent variables. not effective in reducing a child's purchase influence attempts. Table 2 For the final set of independent variables, the data INFLUENCE indicated positive relationships between mothers' time BETWEEN CHILD'S PURCHASE CORRELATIONS spent watching television and influence attempts and AND PARENTAL YIELDING, ATTEMPTS, yielding. This result may simply reflect the greater VARIABLES THEINDEPENDENT availability to children of mothers who watch a great deal of television. Moreover, perhaps influence attempts Child's and promises of yielding occur when mothers and Parental purchase yielding influence children watch television together. attempts Mothers' recall of commercial content, measured by a series of fill-in-the-blank advertising identification Demographics items, was positively related to purchase influence .20a -.13 Child's age -.00 -.00 children of Number attempts, but not to yielding. Some previous research - .01 .00 Social class has suggested that recall of commercials is mainly a Interpersonal variables function of intelligence [7]. Thus the relationship beParent-child conflict .18b -.00 tween recall and the two dependent variables may indi-.24a Restrictions on viewing --.01 cate that although children of more intelligent mothers Communicationvariables .18b .23a Mother's time spent with television ask for more products, these mothers are less likely to .04 .26& Recall of commercials yield to these influence attempts. .16b Attitudes toward advertising - .00 Finally, a weak positive relationship obtained between toward advertising and yielding. Mothers with attitudes ap < .01. b p < .05. more positive attitudes toward advertising were more

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ATTEMPTS PURCHASE INFLUENCE CHILDREN'S

319

influenceattemptsthan mothlikely to yieldto purchase ers with less favorableattitudes;their childrenwereno more likely to ask for products than other children, however. Partial correlation coefficientswere also computed for all these relationships,with age of the child controlled. Data indicatedonly slight changes in the patterns of relationships reportedabove.
SUMMARY

bles will be examined.Moreover,characteristics of the viewingsituationshould be considered.It may be that joint parent-childor family viewing increasesthe incidence of purchase influence attempts and further, severalchildren"gangingup" on parentsmay increase their yielding to purchaseinfluenceattempts. Finally, characteristics of childrenshouldbe examined. REFERENCES

Children'spurchaseinfluenceattemptsmay decrease somewhatwith age, dependingon the type of product, but mothers' yielding to requests increases with age, probably reflectinga perceivedincreasedcompetence of older childrenin makingjudgmentsabout purchase decisions. conflictarerelatedto influence Aspectsof parent-child The and data suggest that influence attempts yielding. attempts may be part of a more general parent-child motherswho restrictviewingare conflict;furthermore, likely not to yield to purchase influence attempts. Finally, mothers' time spent watching television is positively related to influence attempts and yielding, while recall of commercials is positivelyrelatedonly to influenceattempts.Mothers with positive attitudestoward advertisingare more likely than mothers with negativeattitudesto yield to influenceattempts. In future research, other aspects of parent-child interactionand their influenceon the dependentvaria-

1. Berey, L. A. and R. W. Pollay. "The InfluencingRole of the Child in Family Decision-Making,"Journal of MarketingResearch,5 (February1968), 70-2. 2. Chaffee, Steven, Scott Ward, and Leonard Tipton. "Mass and Political Socialization,"JournalismQuarCommunication terly, 47 (Winter1970), 647-59. 3. TheDynamicsof Household BrandDecision-Making. New York: Time/Life, Inc., 1967. 4. Granbois, D. H. "The Role of Communicationin the Family Decision-Making Process," unpublished paper, Indiana University, 1967. 5. Halloran, James D., Roger L. Brown, and David C. Chaney. Television and Delinquency. Leicester, Eng.: Leicester University Press, 1970. 6. McLeod, Jack, Garrett O'Keefe, and Daniel B. Wackman. "Communication and PoliticalSocializationDuring the Adolescent Years,"paper presentedat meetingsof the Associationfor Educationin Journalism,1969. 7. Ward, Scott and Daniel B. Wackman. "Family and Media Influences on Adolescent Consumer Behavior," American BehavioralScientist, 14 (January-February 1971), 415-27. 8. Yankelovich, Daniel, Inc. "Mothers' Attitudes Toward Children's Programsand Commercials," unpublishedpaper, Action for Children'sTelevision, 1970.

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