Posted on 07/25/2011 7:52:08 AM PDT by decimon
Mothers have a stronger tendency to mimic their daughters' consumption behavior than vice versa
How much do our children influence our consumption behavior? Much more than we thought.
A new study by a Temple University Fox School of Business professor finds that teenage girls have a strong influence on the products their mothers buy solely for personal use, as in makeup or clothing, and that mothers have a much stronger tendency to mimic their daughters' consumption behavior than vice versa.
"This finding provides initial support for the notion of reverse socialization and suggests that the impact adolescents have on their parents is much more profound than has been credited to them," Dr. Ayalla A. Ruvio, lead author and an assistant professor of marketing, writes in a forthcoming Journal of Consumer Behavior article.
This phenomenon – an intentional decision-making process of whom to mimic and how – produced a new term and inspired the article's title: the consumer doppelganger effect.
"It is not merely the mimicking act that is conscious," the researchers wrote of the consumer doppelganger effect. "The findings clearly indicate that the subjects intentionally choose the figure they want to emulate and report their inclination to mimic their consumption behavior."
The researchers analyzed whether teenage girls tend to emulate their mothers' consumption behavior or whether mothers mimic their daughters. The study, conducted through questionnaires, sampled 343 mother-daughter pairs, with an average age of 44 for the mothers and 16 for the daughters. The researchers found that if a mother is young at heart, has high fashion consciousness and views her daughter as a style expert, she will tend to doppelgang her daughter's consumption behavior.
However, even if the daughter has high interest in fashion and an older cognitive age –thinking she's older than she is – she still is less likely to view her mother as a consumer role model and to doppelgang her.
According to the researchers, the mother-daughter model is the first to test "bidirectional influence," or whether the consumer doppelganger effect can go both ways. Ruvio and her colleagues integrated "two streams of research," the study of mimicry and literature on role modeling, to demonstrate that "children affect their parents' consumption behavior with regard to the products that the parents themselves consume."
This weekend my daughter told me she’s so much cooler than me. Of course, that’s because I’m so much smarter too!
Was this written by a person with no kids/
If you have kids you know they get everything first
whatever we need in the house tends to be affected by what the kids want first.
any parent would know this
I know, I see these dim bulbs at the local high school, etc.
Screw what they want, the spoiled selfish little germ-infested nosepickers. Give em mush and milk and send em to bed!
Geez, doesn’t everybody know that the smartest people in this world are teenage girls? They are given to lecturing all of us on what’s wrong with the world, and how we should save the whales, save the polar bears, work for world peace, use alternative energy, etc. etc.
How nice to learn in the “fashion” area, that girls who dress and act like sluts are influencing their mothers to dress and act like sluts too. How special. (sarcasm)
Geez, doesn’t everybody know that the smartest people in this world are teenage girls? They are given to lecturing all of us on what’s wrong with the world, and how we should save the whales, save the polar bears, work for world peace, use alternative energy, etc. etc.
How nice to learn in the “fashion” area, that girls who dress and act like sluts are influencing their mothers to dress and act like sluts too. How special. (sarcasm)
“I know, I see these dim bulbs at the local high school, etc.”
Agree. Just this week my jaw dropped when I saw a woman in her early to mid forties in a SHORT minidress and wearing Uggs......on the hottest day of the year here in Atlanta. Already ridiculous looking trying to look like a 16 year high school hottie....but Ugg snow boots when it’s 95 out!? Crazy and stupid!
“Mothers have a stronger tendency to mimic their daughters’ consumption behavior than vice versa”
Those mothers don’t want to be mothers. They want to be buddies.
Nothing is much more pathetic than a 40-50 year old woman (or man) attempting to appear like an adolescent. Develop a little self-respect. Much of what passes for fashion today is very unflattering for the teen, how much more so
the parent.
That is surprising if true and tested correctly. Its sad that mothers aren't setting an example of how to dress properly and spend money in a responsible fashion, as opposed to mothers trying to hold onto their youth by buying whatever trendy thing their teenage daughters buy.
That is surprising if true and tested correctly. Its sad that mothers aren't setting an example of how to dress properly and spend money in a responsible fashion, as opposed to mothers trying to hold onto their youth by buying whatever trendy thing their teenage daughters buy.
That is surprising if true and tested correctly. Its sad that mothers aren't setting an example of how to dress properly and spend money in a responsible fashion, as opposed to mothers trying to hold onto their youth by buying whatever trendy thing their teenage daughters buy.
This is baloney. Both my daughters copy MY style even though we live on opposite sides of the country. They copied my taste in china when they got married. They have copied my clothes even though we hadn’t seen each other in months. One time my oldest daughter showed up at her brother’s wedding with the same dress that I had brought. Mine had been purchased in Milwaukee while hers had been purchased in Washington State and the wedding was in Tennessee. We also carried the same purse until mine wore out.
The latest thing is that we each have a set of throw pillows covered in the same fabric. Mine were purchased in Wisconsin and are rectangular, while hers were purchased in Virginia and are square. We’ve each purchased the same sheets too without talking to each other. There are so many similar incidents that it is eery. Her husband thinks that it is truly weird. He quietly roams my house when they visit (which averages once every 2 years) and quietly notes all the duplicates.
I figure it is because both daughters lived and shopped with me for about 21 years of their lives. Patterns and preferences establish themselves.
Nothing is much more pathetic than a 40-50 year old woman (or man) attempting to appear like an adolescent.
Yes there is. A 40-50 year old woman DOING and adolescent!
This isn’t a new thing - I have a set of books, written in the 40’s and 50’s, with a mother-daughter pair of whom the mother buys everything to match for both of them. The other adult characters in the book thought the mom was very creepy.
Please moms - put some clothes on! Yes, a few of you look great in mini skirts and the black cocktail dress, but the vast majority look ridiculous in a midriff baring halter with your big belly hanging out there above your toe peekers with your cloven hooves on display.
Please!
I never understand these mothers trying to look and act like teenagers. Are they looking for young boyfriends?
Well, I am now excruciatingly up to date on the latest pop music that my soon to be teen-age daughter listens to. I’m also way more familiar than I want to be with all the teen-age TV shows and stars on the Disney Channel.
I don’t much care for any of it, especially when she commandeers my car radio whenever she’s in my car (which is a lot). But I grit my teeth and listen to it because:
a) I want to know what she’s being exposed to (including that dreadful Rihanna S&M song and video, thanks to which my daughter now knows, alarmingly, what a ball gag is), and
b) I figure it’s karmic payback for doing the same thing to my poor mother back in 1963 (I was 13 when the Beatles first started hitting the charts, although in fairness they weren’t singing about S&M).
I don’t think my daughter has any influence on her mom’s consumption habits though.
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