Materialistic Children Expect More During 'Season For Giving'

Materialistic Children Expect More During 'Season For Giving'

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA--The holiday season is known as "the season for giving" and materialistic youth expect their parents to give them more presents, reminds a Penn State Smeal College of Business marketing researcher.

"Parents who are materialistic tend to have children who are more materialistic and my research documents that materialistic children expect parents to spend more on presents during the holiday season," says Marvin Goldberg, professor of marketing in Penn State's Smeal College of Business. Goldberg is lead author of a national study examining materialism in 9-14 year olds. The study, "Understanding Materialism Among Youth," will appear in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Consumer Psychology .

"More materialistic youths also exert more influence or pressure on their parents with regard to the purchase process," says Goldberg. "More highly materialistic youths were more likely to ask their parents for products they saw advertised on TV or in the store."

Goldberg explains that marketing efforts aimed at youngsters may indeed be robbing children of their childhood and making kids more materialistic.

"Over the past decade or so marketers have increasingly targeted the 27 million youth that are 9-14 years old. Midway between early childhood and adolescence, they have been labeled 'tweens' and this subsegment has drawn the attention of a broad array of marketers," says Goldberg. "Materialistic 9-14 year olds-called 'tweens'--are most interested in new products and most responsive to advertising and promotional efforts. Their parents view them as more expert with regard to the products and these children wield more purchase influence on their parents."

Goldberg authored the study with Laura Peracchio of the University of Wisconsin; Gerald J. Gorn of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; and Gary Bamossy of the University of Utah.

Children account directly for an estimated $36 billion in sales annually and when their indirect influence over far-ranging product decisions from stereos to vacations is considered, the estimate of the total economic spending impacted by children in the U.S. is $290 billion, notes Goldberg. It is estimated that by age 10 the average child makes five trips a week either to a store or a shopping center.

In the study, the researchers focus on the materialism of 9-14 year old tweens and, through the use of a Youth Materialism Scale (YMS), they sought to gain a better understanding of: 1) youth's orientation towards purchasing; 2) their responses to marketing initiatives; 3) the interplay in the marketplace between youth and their parents, and 4) broader issues such as the general happiness of youth and their liking for school.

Administered nationwide as part of a Simmons study, the questionnaire for the 9-14 year olds included questions related to product and service usage, media and lifestyle-type questions. In addition, a questionnaire was also administered to the parents of these children. Questionnaires from 540 parents and 996 9-14 year old youths were completed and returned. Of the sample of 9-14 year olds, 512 were female and 476 were males. The youths could respond using a four point scale: 1 = "disagree a lot"; 2 = "disagree a little"; 3 = "agree a little;" 4 = "agree a lot." Scale items included: "I have fun just thinking of all the things I own;" "I'd rather spend time buying things and doing almost anything else;" and "The only kind of job I want when I grow up is one that gets me lots of money."

The results include: The most materialistic youths were less likely to have a savings account (probably in their eagerness to spend whatever money they had, notes Goldberg) than the least materialistic youths (45% vs. 59%).

• More materialistic youths appeared to be more interested in TV commercials than those who were less materialistic. When asked: "Do you usually watch the commercials on TV most of the time or do you skip over them with a remote control?" 68% of the youths in the upper quartile reported that they were likely to watch the commercials, compared to (the still relatively high) 54% of those in the lowest quartile.
  · When asked: "Do you ask your parents to buy a product because you have seen it on TV?" a significantly higher percentage (77%) of the most materialistic youths answered "yes" as compared to 50% of the least materialistic youth.
• A greater percentage of the most materialistic youths (22% of those in the upper quartile vs. 14% in the lower quartile) reported that they had answered appeals in TV commercials that provided a telephone number to purchase a product.
• More materialistic youths appeared to be more influenced by in-store promotions than did less materialistic youths. A higher percentage of youths in the upper vs. lower quartile of the YMS measure (29% vs. 17%) indicated that they always talked to their parents about, or pointed to, signs/ads on shelves.

"More materialistic youths seemed to exert more influence or pressure on their parents with regard to the purchase process," says Goldberg. "More highly materialistic youths were more likely to ask their parents for products they saw advertised on TV or in the store."

Although overall the youths' reported grades were fairly high, the most materialistic youths performed somewhat more poorly relative to the least materialistic youths. In an even broader sense, he says, the values youth carry with them into adulthood, perhaps especially that of materialism, will no doubt affect the balance in the private and public choices they make throughout life, and is one reason to continue to explore a materialism orientation among the young.

Goldberg points out that while there is concern regarding materialism among youth, very little research has focused on the issue and that the study's findings are intended as an exploratory effort to understand materialism as a phenomenon among youth and how it relates to other aspects of their environment. For the future, Goldberg wants to explore the forces on tweens that are likely related to their heightened materialism. These include the Britney Spears type-phenomenon: the highly charged/ highly sexual marketing efforts that are targeted to tweens.