Adolescent influence in family purchase decisions: An update and cross-national extension

Abstract

This research provides an update and extension of previous work on adolescent influence in family purchase decisions by assessing influence across decision phases using samples of both American and Chinese adolescents. Contrary to previous findings, we find that adolescent influence at the decision stage is not lower than at the initiation stage in both the U.S. and Chinese samples, suggesting that adolescents in our current sample have considerable power in family decision making. We also found that adolescents' self-reported influence is largely consistent with their parents' perceptions of their children's influence. Further, we found no differences in adolescent influence between the U.S. and Chinese samples across all stages of the family purchase decision, as well as no gender effects in either sample. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and suggestions for further research.