Why We Sniff Bread (Consumer Socialization)

by Tasha Dickerson

Introduction

        It’s Saturday morning, and you’re getting some groceries from our local Hy-Vee.  As you walk down the bread aisle, you see the most amazing sight!  Another shopper opens the bread wrapper and sniffs the loaf!  You raise a disbelieving eyebrow as Crazy Shopper, apparently unsatisfied, rewraps and places the sniffed bread back on the shelf, grabs another loaf, and opens and sniffs it as well!  Crazy Shopper nods and, having found an acceptable loaf, rewraps the bread and places it in the cart before walking up to the checkout lanes without a concern in the world.  Your primary concern now is to make sure that you don’t pick up the sniffed bread.  After all, who wants to buy bread that’s been sniffed?  But most importantly, why on Earth would anyone do such a thing?

        It is very likely that Crazy Shopper didn’t just wake up one morning to decide to sniff bread before buying it; this behavior is part of a normal (for Crazy Shopper, anyway) shopping activity that was likely formed when Crazy Shopper was still a young, not-too-crazy child, sitting in a cart, watching Mom buy bread.  Learning by watching someone else make a purchase is a modeling activity associated with consumer socialization.  “Consumer socialization is the process ‘by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their functioning in the marketplace’” (Carlson & Grossbart, 1988, p. 77).  In other words, consumer socialization is how children learn to be consumers. 

Explanation of the Topic

        Consumer socialization of children includes many different elements, such as age, family communication structure, co-shopping and advertisements/mass media.  Consumer socialization also influences the development of brand preferences, as well as materialistic tendencies.  As each of these elements is significant to consumer socialization, each one will examined in depth.

Age

        As children get older, they develop their cognitive abilities.  In other words, as kids grow up, they get smarter.  Young children (those under the age of 7) tend to have difficulty processing complex information.  By age 7, children have better information processing and storage skills but have difficulty retrieving what they know without cues.  This trouble with retrieving tends to recede with age; children aged 12 and older can retrieve stored information without the aid of cues (John, 1999).

           The various cognitive abilities associated with each stage are summarized in Table 1 (found near the end of the tutorial).  Children in the Perceptual Stage tend to view things as they relate to themselves (egocentric perception) and look for the biggest of all options available (focus on perceptual features); these children would look for the biggest loaf of bread.  As children move into the Analytical Stage, they begin to understand more complex, abstract ideas (orientation), as well as look for functional attributes of a product (focus on functional/underlying features).  They do not necessarily want the biggest loaf of bread; they want the softest or tastiest one.  The final stage, the Reflective Stage, is an expansion on the Analytical Stage – this represents the older children’s expanded knowledge bases.  In this stage, children construct more complex knowledge structures that encompass more elements of their own knowledge base (Multidimensional knowledge structure).  This confirms Deborah John’s (1999) statement that by using the information they have gathered from experience, older children are better-informed consumers.  They may rely on the impressions of the last loaf of bread they consumed to choose the softest, healthiest, best-tasting bread.

Family Communication Structure

        Since children spend most of their time with their family members, family is the most influential agent of socialization; therefore, the communication structure within a family can affect a child’s consumer socialization.  As Research Assistant Professor George Moschis (1985) states, there are two dimensions of communication: socio- and concept-oriented.  Socio-oriented communication seeks harmony and creates an atmosphere of obedience.  Children are taught to avoid controversy, and parents closely monitor and control children’s consumption behaviors (Carlson, Grossbart, & Walsh, 1990; Moschis, 1985).  Here, parents choose the bread, and children know that trying to convince their parents to purchase something else is futile.  In contrast, a concept-oriented communication environment encourages children to develop their own ideas, opinions, skills and views about the world (Carlson et al., 1990; Moschis, 1985).  Parents encourage their children to help pick out a loaf of bread and show what characteristics children should look for when purchasing bread.

        As depicted in Table 2 (found near the end of the tutorial), various levels of socio- and concept-oriented communication create four distinct patterns of communication: Laissez-faire, Protective, Pluralistic and Consensual (Moschis, 1985).  A Laissez-faire communication structure is characterized by a lack of parent-child communication.  Protective parents seek obedience from their children; children are not allowed to voice dissent.  Pluralistic parents encourage open communication; they allow their children to voice opinions and ideas in an environment of mutual respect that does not include strict obedience to authority.  Consensual parents stress harmony within the family but allow their children to explore new ideas and opinions; children can seek out new information and develop new opinions as long as they do not conflict with their parents’ views (Carlson et al. 1990; Moschis, 1985).

        The implications of growing up in these various environments are significant when examining children’s consumer socialization.  Socio-oriented parents (Laissez-faires and Protectives) tend to stress fewer instrumental goals – such as how to evaluate product features – and focus on the social implications of a purchase – such as social acceptance.  These parents would buy the most popular brand of bread, regardless of taste, softness, or nutritional value.  On the other hand, concept-oriented parents (Pluralistics and Consensuals) tend to have goals that are more instrumental to the development of their children’s consumer behaviors.  They stress the functional attributes of the bread over the social implications of purchasing it.

        While socio-oriented parents force their decisions onto their children (i.e., “We are getting this loaf of bread.”), concept-oriented parents consider children’s opinions (i.e., “Which loaf of bread do you think we should get?”).  It becomes obvious that children in concept-oriented families tend to have more influence in purchase decisions; this involvement will better serve them as they being to develop their own consumer behaviors, whereas children from socio-oriented families will not have this experience upon which to base future purchase decisions.

Co-shopping

        Family involvement in consumer socialization of children extends outside of the home and into the marketplace.  As Assistant Professor of Marketing Les Carlson and Professor of Marketing Sanford Grossbart (1988) point out, “even if parents do not try to socialize children, children can be influenced if they model parental consumer behaviors and values” (p. 89).  This modeling often occurs in the marketplace, as parents take their children shopping; children will copy their parents’ bread-buying behaviors.

        Mothers are the most frequent shoppers in the families, and they often have the care of the younger children; therefore, it is not hard to imagine that young children receive most of their consumer socialization through modeling the behaviors they observed during shopping trips with their mothers.  Remember Crazy Shopper?  Suppose Crazy Shopper’s mom sniffed bread.  Crazy Shopper likely learned to sniff bread by modeling Mom’s behavior.  Haynes, Burts, Dukes & Cloud (1993) point out that even though young children (preschoolers and kindergartners) have little money to spend, they tend to spend more time in the marketplace, shopping with their mothers.  During these shopping trips, children develop shopping scripts – the steps in the shopping procedure – that allow them to learn about transactions: where they occur and what procedures are necessary to complete them (John, 1999).  They learn to find the bread, to go to the checkout, to give the cashier money, and to wait for change and/or a receipt.

         Children may develop consumer behaviors through influences from cognitive factors or from environmental factors.  Cognitive factors are usually age-related; older children know more about buying bread than younger children.  Environmental factors include persuasive elements, as well as socialization agents, such as Mom.  In their study involving the purchase and use of children’s clothing, Haynes et al. (1993) found that mothers involved children more in the process of selecting clothing by seeking out children’s opinions regarding the clothing they would wear.  These same mother would likely seek their children’s opinions regarding the bread that they would eat.

        Some mothers are interested in developing shopping skills in their children.  These mothers place great emphasis on teaching their children while in a store.  They will listen to children’s opinions and answer any questions; they are also more likely to explain their own purchasing behaviors to their children (Grossbart, Carlson, & Walsh, 1991).  Crazy Shopper’s mom probably explained that she sniffed the bread to find out how fresh it was.  She would also have taught Little Crazy Shopper what fresh bread smelled like, reinforcing the sniffing behavior.  This high-involvement co-shopping provides children with greater knowledge about the marketplace and a greater knowledge base upon which to make future purchase decisions.

        While interaction with children during a shopping trip is ideal, some parents assume that their children will learn consumer behaviors simply through observations.  Children do learn through modeling – replicating the behaviors parents perform.  During a study involving adolescents’ use of product labels, Mangleburg, Grewal, and Bristol (1997) found that if children observed their parents reading product labels and using the information to make a purchase decision, those children were more likely to read product labels.  This is especially important as children grow up to become adolescents; adolescents tend to make more independent purchase decisions, and the use of product labels, such as those outlining the nutritional content of a product, could be a significant factor in making a final decision (Mangleburg et al., 1997).  If, as children, they saw their parents buy bread based on its nutritional value, these adolescents are more likely to look at nutritional information found on the bread wrapper to help them make their final purchase decisions.

Advertisements/Mass Media

        Advertising often helps to develop a desire for the product advertised.  This effect is the same for children as well as adults.  For young children (those in the Perceptual Stage) who have not fully developed cognitive abilities, commercial advertisements appear to be short, entertaining programs in the middle of the main program; while they can tell programs and commercials apart, these children do not understand what commercials are or why they are used.  They believe that all the information presented in a commercial is entirely factual (John, 1999).  As children grow up, they begin to understand that advertisements are used to try to sell a product.  They begin to view advertisements more analytically, examining content and execution.  These older children know that advertisements are not entirely factual, and that by exaggerating or lying during advertisements, products appear more impressive (John, 1999).

        Children are also affected by ads that show a behavior.  If children see a person buy a particular brand of bread and experience favorable results, they are likely to buy the same brand.  Mangleburg et al. (1997) state that an adolescent is more likely to perform a behavior if that adolescent sees an ad where a shopper reads a product label, makes a decision based on the information on the label, and reap a reward from his/her purchase.  This is a variation of consumer socialization modeling, where children learn a behavior by watching an advertisement instead of watching a parent.  However, the most important element of modeling from advertising is the perceived reward (Mangleburg et al., 1997).  If children see a commercial where a person buys a particular brand of bread but does not do not perceive a reward (or if the reward is not important to them), they will not be persuaded to buy that brand of bread.

Brand Preferences & Materialistic Tendencies

        As Haynes et al. (1993) state, “brand preferences refer to the extent to which a person has favorite product brands” (p. 154).  As they learn to shop, children learn to differentiate among and assign value to brand names.  Even children who cannot yet read can identify brand logos; brand awareness begins even before children are aware of what brands are (Haynes et al., 1993).  Once children reach the Analytical stage (refer to Table 1), they have usually developed a brand preference.  This becomes significant for marketers.  By making their brand of bread recognizable to young children, they have a better chance of becoming the preferred brand.

        Brands also play a significant role in the development of materialistic tendencies among children.  Children learn to associate brands with social acceptance; this becomes even more marked when the children come from socio-oriented families who stress social acceptance of products.  In these families, children often turn to mass media to learn about what behaviors and products are socially acceptable (Moschis, 1985).  As children grow older, they find that brands help them fit in with their peer group.  An ad showing a bunch of kids happily eating a particular brand of bread would persuade these children to eat that brand in order to fit in.  Children begin to make purchases based on conspicuous consumption (Grossbart et al., 1991); for example, they buy a brand of bread so that others will see what brand they eat and will like them.  Okay, so maybe they don’t buy a particular brand of bread to fit in; however, conspicuous consumption does occur with clothing and children, especially adolescents.  Adolescents will purchase certain brands of clothing so that others will see them wear those brands and make positive assumptions about them.

Examples

        Co-Shopping.  The most obvious example of children’s consumer socialization is co-shopping.  Every Saturday, you can see mothers shopping with their children.  The cereal aisle provides the best place for consumer socialization to occur.  The child, having seen a commercial advertisement for Lucky Charms during Saturday morning cartoon, may run up to the shelf, grab the bright red box with the leprechaun, and present it to Mom.  Mom may, in turn, use this request as an educational experience.  She might explain to the child that the nutritional content of the cereal does not meet her expectations; this teaches the child to read product labels to find a product that meets certain requirements.  The mother might also explain to her child that the price is not suitable; this teaches the child that price is a significant factor in determining whether or not to make a purchase.  Based on this early education, this child may grow up to be a discriminating adult consumer who reads product and pricing labels as determinants of a product’s suitability.

         Age.  Deborah John (1999) presents an example of the analytical nature of children when evaluating commercials.  A fifth-grade boy describes the intent of a commercial for cereal.  He states that to make their product memorable, commercials repeat the name, show the box multiple times, and sometimes use musical jingles as a means of making the name more memorable in a purchasing situation.  This boy is in the Analytical Stage as described in Table 1; he is old enough to understand the intent behind advertising and what elements of the advertisement are significant to accomplishing that intent.  He has learned enough about the marketplace through previous experience to understand why advertising is used.

        Consumer socialization occurs in may situations beyond what is present here.  Many times, children learn vicariously by watching parents’ responses to various marketing and purchasing situations.  Children may learn to dislike telemarketers based on their parents’ reactions to telemarketing phone calls.  Children also learn instrument goals through observation and participation.  For example, when we were young, we accompanied our families on excursions to pick out new family cars.  While shopping, our parents may have mentioned to us that we have to slam car doors and listen to the sounds they make, that car doors must sound a certain way.  Oftentimes, we cannot explain what they should sounds like, but as we begin to search for our own cars, we tend to slam car doors and listen to the sounds they make.

Conclusion

        When it comes to buying bread, we all have peculiar behaviors we engage in.  Some of us will squeeze the bread to find out if it’s soft.  Some of us read the nutritional information.  Some of us just grab whatever is on sale and go.  Whatever behaviors we engage in, we learned to buy bread from a socialization influence in our childhood.  So let’s celebrate our bread-buying differences and hope that we remember which loaf Crazy Shopper sniffed so that we don’t grab it by mistake.

TABLE 1: Consumer Socialization Stages

as outlined by D. R. John

TABLE 2: Family Communication Patterns

as described by G. P. Moschis

Table adapted from “The Role of Family Communication in Consumer Socialization of Children and Adolescents” by G. P. Moschis – Journal of Consumer Research – March 1985, p. 899.

Relevant Websites

Journal of Consumer Research online; research aimed at describing and explaining consumer behavior: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JCR/home.html

Consumer Socialization Model; cartoon model that depicts the elements that influence consumer socialization:  http://www.psych.purdue.edu/~ben/285su2001/notes/figures/20-ch12-insert2.jpg  

Consumption Symbolism; (from abstract) “This paper draws on social learning and consumer socialization theory to propose socialization agents and social structural variables responsible for the development of consumption symbolism in young people”: http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/Research/1995/SWMA/95sma070.htm

American Council on Consumer Interests – Ask an expert; provides email addresses to experts in various fields of consumer interest: http://www.consumerinterests.org/ask.cfm

Center for Mature Consumer Studies; provides understanding of the consumption behavior of the aging population (looks at effects of consumer socialization on mature consumers): http://www.marketing.gsu.edu/cmcs.htm

Test for Understanding

1. The Analytical Stage of consumer socialization is marked by which of the following:
1. Dual perspective.
2. Focus on relevant features.
3. Expanded repertoire of strategies.
4. Abstract representations.
5. All of the above.

2. Which of the following statements regarding socio-oriented communication is FALSE?
1. Seeks harmony.
2. Avoidance of controversy.
3. Atmosphere of mutual respect.
4. Parents monitor children’s consumption.
5. All of the above are true statements.

3. The following statements regarding co-shopping are true EXCEPT:
1. Children can only learn consumer behaviors if their parents are actively teaching them.
2. Children most frequently co-shop with their mothers.
3. Children will develop shopping scripts based on their experiences.
4. Children are most involved in shopping for products they will consume, such as clothing.
5. Mothers may answer questions or explain behaviors to their children to facilitate understanding and learning.

4. The following age category is most susceptible to advertising:
1. Perceptual Stage (3-7 years of age)
2. Analytical Stage (7-11 years of age)
3. Reflective Stage (11-16 years of age)
4. A & B
5. All of the above are highly susceptible to advertising.

5. Of the following age categories, which CANNOT differentiate among brands?
1. Perceptual Stage (3-7 years of age)
2. Analytical Stage (7-11 years of age)
3. Reflective Stage (11-16 years of age)
4. A & B
5. All of the above can differentiate among brands.

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 Answers to Test for Understanding: 1. e; 2. c; 3. a; 4. a; 5. e.

Bibliography

 Carlson, L., Grossbart, S. & Walsh, A. (1990). Mothers’ communication orientation and consumer socialization tendencies. Journal of Advertising, 19(3), 27-38.

Grossbart, S., Carlson, L., & Walsh, A. (1991). Consumer socialization and frequency of shopping with children. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 19(3), 155-163.

Haynes, J. C., Burts, D. C., Dukes, A., & Cloud, R. (1993). Consumer socialization of preschoolers and kindergartners as related to clothing consumption. Psychology and Marketing, 10(2), 151-166.

John, D. R. (1999). Consumer socialization of children: A retrospective look at twenty-five years of research. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), 183-201.

Mangleburg, T. F., Grewal, D., & Bristol, T. (1997). Socialization, gender, and adolescents’ self-reports of their generalized use of product labels. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 31(2), 255-279.

Moschis, G. P. (1985). The role of family communication in consumer socialization of children and adolescents. Journal of Consumer Research, 11(4), 898-913.