The Effect of Parenting on Adolescent Susceptibility to Peer Influence:
Mediating Role of Self-Esteem
Zhiyong Yang
Department of Marketing
University of Texas at Arlington
Box 19469, 701 S. West Street, Arlington, TX 76019
Tel: 817-272-0153, Fax: 817-272-2854, E-mail:
Michel Laroche
Royal Bank Distinguished Professor of Marketing
John Molson School of Business
Concordia University
Montreal, QCH3G 1M8, E-mail:
Ashesh Mukherjee
Associate Professor of Marketing and Desautels Faculty Scholar
Desautels Faculty of Management
McGill University
Montreal, QC H3A 1G5, E-mail:
Acknowledgement: The authors acknowledge financial and data support from Statistics Canada to Zhiyong Yang.
The Effect of Parenting on Adolescent Susceptibility to Peer Influence:
Mediating Role of Self-Esteem
ABSTRACT
Individuals are often influenced by the opinions of peers, such as their friends, activity partners, and colleagues at work (Price and Feick 1984). This is especially true during adolescent years, a time when individuals are particularly sensitive to ideas and trends popular among their peers (Bachmann, John, and Rao 1993). Peer influence on adolescents has significant marketing and public policy implications, since many adolescent decisions ranging from brand choice to substance abuse are affected by the opinions of peers (Kandel 1996; Rose, Boush, and Friestad 1998; Wooten and Reed 2004). In fact, peers influence not just adolescents’ choices at the brand level, but also their attitudes towards retailers, amount of money spent shopping, and attitudes towards consumption in general (Batra, Homer, and Khale 2001; Mangleburg, Doney, and Bristol 2004). Peer influence is also viewed as one of the most important factors, if not the most important one, to affect adolescent smoking or other forms of consumer misbehaviors (Akers and Jensen 2006).
Acknowledging the important role peers play in individuals’ consumption-related decisions, previous research in marketing has validated the fundamental role of susceptibility to peer influence (SPI) and its powerful impact on consumer behavior, where SPI is defined as the tendency for individuals to look to standards from peers to develop their own motivations, attitudes, and behaviors (Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel 1989). Despite the vital role SPI plays in understanding consumer behavior, little research has been conducted to investigate the driving forces of susceptibility. This issue is important because knowing about the key antecedents of SPI allows researchers and practitioners can develop effective intervening strategies to alter individuals’ vulnerability to peer influence.
In the present research, we fill this gap through examining the effects of parenting strategies on SPI among adolescents. Specifically, we develop an integrative model of adolescent susceptibility to peer influence that includes parenting strategies (parental responsiveness and parental psychological control) as driver, adolescents’ self-esteem as mediator, and stage at adolescence as moderator of susceptibility to peer influence. The overarching finding in our studies is that responsive parenting decreases susceptibility by bolstering adolescents’ self-esteem, while psychologically controlling parenting increases susceptibility without influencing adolescents’ self-esteem. This is especially true for children at their mid- and late-adolescence stages. Notably, these results were observed in both cross-sectional (Studies 1 and 2) and longitudinal data (Study 3), as well as data from both adolescents and their parents. Implications of the results for improving the effectiveness of parent-oriented anti-smoking campaigns are discussed.
References:
Akers, Ronald L., and Gary F. Jensen (2006), “The Empirical Status of Social Learning Theory of Crime and Deviance: The Past, Present, and Future,” In Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory (pp. 37-76), F. Cullen, J. Wright and K. Blevins (eds.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Bachmann, Gwen, Deborah Roedder John and Akshay R Rao (1993), “Children’s Susceptibility to Peer Group Purchase Influence: An Exploratory Investigation,” Advances in Consumer Research, 20, 463-468.
Batra, Rajeev, Pamela M. Homer, and Lynn R. Khale (2001), “Values, Susceptibility to Normative Influence, and Attribute Importance Weights: A Nomological Analysis,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11(2), 115-128.
Bearden, William O., Richard G. Netemeyer, and Jesse E. Teel (1989), “Measurement of Consumer Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence,” Journal of Consumer Research, 15(March), 473-481.
Kandel, Denise B. (1996), “The Parental and Peer Context of Adolescent Deviance: An Algebra of Interpersonal Influences,” Journal of Drug Issues, 26 (Summer), 298-315.
Mangleburg, Tamara F., Patricia M. Doney, and Terry Bristol (2004), “Shopping with Friends, and Teen’s Susceptibility to Peer Influence,” Journal of Retailing, 80 (2), 101-116.
Price, Linda L. and Lawrence Feick (1984), “The Role of Interpersonal Sources in External Research: An Informational Perspective,” In Thomas Kinnear (Ed.), Advances in Consumer Research, 11 (pp. 250-255), Chicago, IL: Association for Consumer Research.
Rose, Gregory M., David M. Boush, and Marian Friestad (1998), “Self-Esteem, Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence, and Fashion Attribute Preference in Early Adolescents,” European Advances in Consumer Research, 3, 197-203.
Wooten, David B. and Americus Reed II (2004), “Playing It Safe: Susceptibility to Normative Influence and Protective Self-Presentation,” Journal of Consumer Research, 31(December), 551-556.