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University of Lugano Faculty of Communication Sciences ________________________________________________
Parental mediation of children's TV advertising exposure and its effects on children

A parent survey
Masters Thesis of Tanja Glii 04-983-839
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Andreina Mandelli Academic year 2005/06
University of Lugano Faculty of Communication Sciences ________________________________________________
Parental mediation of children's TV advertising exposure and its effects on children

A parent survey
Masters Thesis of Tanja Glii 04-983-839
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Andreina Mandelli Academic year 2005/06
za moju Lanuku, i njenu kucu, i njenu macu, i za mog Gilia
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SUMMARY The study conducted in this work addresses consumer socialization of preschoolers by focusing on their parents mediation of both childrens TV advertising exposure and childrens purchase requests, and possible parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising. Based on the literature review, a research model was developed to explore parental role in mediating both TV advertising exposure and childrens purchase requests induced by TV advertising and their relation to childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict. An exploratory study was then developed to test the developed research model, intending to contribute to the previous research by answering following questions: 1. Is any of TV advertising mediation strategies, active or restrictive, strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests and parent-child conflict?; 2. Is there a difference between Pluralistic, Protective, Consensual and Laissez-faire parents in type of purchase denial they make and are some types of denials strongly related to occurrence of childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict? Moreover, the hypothesis H1 was tested: Concept-oriented parents are apt to use active TV advertising mediation strategy, while socio-oriented parents are apt to use restrictive TV advertising mediation strategy. The exploratory study conducted in this work included the parents of preschool children that attend infancy school in municipality of Paradiso, Switzerland. The results indicate that moderate to strong dependence exists between active mediation strategy that parents in the sample use and childs reaction to purchase denial. Weak to moderate dependence between the type of parental denial and purchase requests, and very weak dependence between the type of parental denial and conflict was established. It was found, with weak dependence, that Protective mothers use explanation when deny purchase requests and that Consensual mothers do not use any specific but rather different types of purchase denial. Further, it was found that socio-oriented parents in the sample are apt to use active mediation strategy which is opposite from the hypothesis tested. In addition, they are apt to use restrictive mediation only in a combination with active mediation. For concept-oriented parents in the sample there was weak to moderate and moderate relation to restrictive and active mediation strategies, respectively.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work would never be completed without precious help of very kind people that I would like to thank: Professor Andreina Mandelli for supervising this work and all the help and ideas she gave me as well as for giving me the freedom to fulfill my own ideas. Assistant Ms. Antonella La Rocca for help in logistic matters. The teachers of the infancy school in Paradiso: Mrs. Barbara Baggiolini, Mrs. Muriel Bandoni, Mrs. Renata Corti, Mrs. Myriam Gargantini, Mrs Paola Romano, and the director of the infancy school Mr. Flavio Guglielmetti, for authorizing me to conduct my study in the infancy school and for their availability and help in distributing and collecting the questionnaires allowing me in that way to perform this work in an efficient and prompt manner. All the parents, residents of Paradiso, that filled in the questionnaire and, in that way, helped me to conclude this research project. Ms. Nicoletta Casanova for her time and efforts spent in translation of my documents from English to correct Italian. Mojoj seki, Dr. Danici Kragi, na koju sam neizmjerno ponosna. Ima toliko toga na emu bi ti htjela zahvalitihvala seki! Mojima mami i tati koji su mi uvijek davali podrku u svemu. Mojim Gliiima to su vjerovali u mene. Veliko hvala i mojoj Baki. Hvala i obitelji Jensfelt, posebno Patricu i Katji. Lani i Giliu to su izdrali! Mom blagu, mojoj Lani, koja mi je dala snagu kada je nije bilo i mom Giletu koji je vjerovao u mene, davao mi podrku na sve mogue naine i volio me uz sve moje mogue i nemogue uspone i padove.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. CHILDRENS CONSUMER SOCIALIZATION AND PARENTS ROLE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM RESEARCH QUESTIONS SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS iii iv v 1 1 3 4 5 6 8 8 8 19 21 22 22 26 27 27 31 32 32 34
CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH 2.1. THE RELATION AND EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ADVERTISING ON PARENT-CHILD
CONFLICT
2.1.1. Literature review 2.1.2. Discussion and conclusions 2.2. PARENTAL MEDIATION OF TV ADVERTISING EXPOSURE AND CHILDS
PURCHASE REQUESTS
2.2.1. Family communication environment 2.2.1.1. Literature review 2.2.1.2. Discussion and conclusions with propositions for the current study 2.2.2 Active and restrictive parental mediation of childs TV advertising exposure 2.2.2.1. Literature review 2.2.2.2. Discussion and conclusions with propositions for the current study 2.2.3 Parental mediation of childs product desire and purchase request induced by TV advertising 2.2.3.1. Literature review 2.2.3.2. Discussion and conclusions with propositions for the current study
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. OVERVIEW THE RESEARCH MODEL METHODOLOGY 3.3.1. Sample and data collection procedure 3.3.2. Measures 3.3.3. Data analysis procedure 3.3.4. Discussion about limitations of methodology used CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 4.6. SAMPLE PROFILE RESPONDENTS DATA REGARDING PARENTAL COMMUNICATION PATTERNS
AND TV ADVERTISING EXPOSURE MEDIATION STRATEGY
37 37 38 40 41 43 47 48 49 49 55 57
CHILDRENS TV VIEWING AND PURCHASE REQUESTS

CHILDS PURCHASE REQUESTS AND CHILDS USUAL REACTION TO DENIAL
PARENTAL RESPONSE TO PURCHASE REQUESTS, TYPE OF PARENTAL DENIAL OF 59 EXAMINATION OF HYPOTHESIS H1 EXAMINATION OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS RQ1 AND RQ2 65 70 76 76 80 81 82 86 87 91
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. CONCLUSIONS LIMITATIONS FUTURE RESEARCH
REFERENCES APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE EXPLORATORY STUDY-ENGLISH VERSION QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE EXPLORATORY STUDY-ITALIAN VERSION
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
Child and advertising oriented research has two major approaches. One is generally experimental approach addressing cognitive development, whereby childrens information processing and decision making have been examined extensively at different stages of the development. The second is an environmental approach addressing consumer socialization, whereby learning from advertising and other sources is examined within its social and cultural context. Both consumer socialization and cognitive development provide important fundamental research perspectives. The study conducted in this work addresses consumer socialization of preschoolers by focusing on their parents means to mediate both childrens TV advertising exposure and childrens purchase requests, and possible parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising.
1.1. CHILDRENS CONSUMER SOCIALIZATION AND PARENTS ROLE
Ward (1974, 2) defined the consumer socialization as the process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace. Consumer socialization theory emphasizes that children gain consumptionrelated skills, knowledge, and attitudes through the interaction with socialization agents in various social settings. Such socialization agents include parents, peers, schools, and mass media. Especially for young children, the two primary socialization sources are the family and the media (Solomon 2004). From childhood on, parents provide childrens basic physical and mental needs; they rear and give emotional support; they have knowledge and are skilled in doing things about which children need to learn. All these are the reasons why the parents are one of the most important socialization agents (Bao 2001). Childrens learning might involve three processes: modelling, reinforcement, and social interaction (Moschis 1985).
First, by performing certain acts, a family member may consciously or unconsciously communicate certain norms and expectations to others. The communication in this case is likely to take place at a cognitive level, and consumer learning is likely to be the result of observation or imitation of these behaviours. A child may make a conscious effort to imitate the behaviour of his/her parents because the parents behaviour is the most salient alternative open to him/her (i.e., a child does the same things as parents do in order to be like them). The second learning process, reinforcement, involves either reward (i.e., positive reinforcement of desired skills, knowledge and attitudes) or punishment (i.e., negative reinforcement of undesired skills, knowledge and attitudes) mechanisms used by the socialization agents (Moschis 1985). When children are rewarded for engaging in certain behaviour, they might retain the behaviour to expect further reward. Consequently, if parents yield childs purchase requests induced by TV advertising, children might keep asking for the products being advertised. When children are punished for certain behaviour, they might stop that behaviour to avoid future punishment. The reciprocal influence between source and learner is the focus of the third learning process, social interaction (Bao 2001). During social interaction, children do not simply act, they react. For example, when parents limit childrens TV viewing (TV advertising viewing), children may accept it or may refuse it. Under the latter situation, some parents may force children to accept the restriction with punishment. Some parents may explain why children should not watch too much TV and children accept the explanation. Through this explanation, children may learn about parents orientations and their reasons of concern. Parents may also listen to children, evaluate their reasoning and modify the restriction. In that way children influence their parents through the interaction. Social interaction between children and socialization agents (especially parents) continuously modify childrens personality and self-concept development. Thus the frequency and quality of communication between children and the social agents have great impact on childrens development as well as parents' adjustment toward children. For example, research suggests that frequent parent-child communication increases parents influence on childrens consumption behaviours (Moschis 1985).
1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Some researchers underline that parents may influence childrens orientations only to the extent that children accurately perceive and reinterpret them. Childrens perceptions of their parents views rather than their parents actual beliefs and attitudes may have more impact on the development of childrens orientations (Carlson, Walsh, Laczniak, and Grossbart 1994). Additionally, Wackman, Wartella and Ward (1977) say that the childs interpretation of his experience will determine the influence of environmental factors on his cognitive growth. For example, a young child may interpret mothers refusal of a request for a toy in a number of ways the toy is an inappropriate gift, the toy is dangerous, mother is mean, etc. The child may interpret all, or only some, of these aspects of the situation, and, depending on his/her interpretation, very different learning outcomes may occur. In addition, when the environment provides new experiences, which can be assimilated and accommodated to the childs cognitive level, then new cognitive abilities can be developed at a much earlier age. Ward et al. (1977, see for a review Moschis 1985, 904) identified methods that mothers use to teach children consumer skills: prohibiting certain acts, giving lectures on consumer activities, holding discussions with the child about consumer decisions, acting as an example, and allowing the child to learn from his/her own experience. According to this research, most mothers use relatively few teaching methods. Therefore, although the family plays an important role in consumer socialization of the young children, it seems that parental influence is often incidental and that it proceeds through subtle interpersonal processes rather than via direct, purposive consumer training (parent-child discussions about consumption are most likely to be initiated as a result of the childs request for a product that he/she sees advertised). Also according to Corder-Bolz (1980) parents do not make extensive use of existing means for intentional influences. In addition, The literature suggests that parents may not sufficiently recognize the importance of their indirect methods of influence, frequently serving as poor role models or cultivating communication patterns within the family that
do not help children develop effective decision-making skills (Fujioka and Austin 2002, 643). Parental mediation is often considered the most effective tool in the management of televisions influence on children (W. A. Donohue and Meyer 1984, cited from Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005, 153). Children usually watch television in a family context that is largely provided by their parents, which can indeed play the vital role in helping children to become literate as television viewers (Singer and Singer 1998).
However, Fujioka and Austin (2002, 642) stated although a number of studies have
examined parental influences, we still know little about parents motivations for discussing media messages or the results of such discussions.
1.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
While actually parents and their children of any age might live unintended TV advertising effects, much of existing research on family communication structure focuses on adolescents, and one would expect the family influence to be even greater with younger children (Roedder 1999, 206). The state of research did not change much since 1999, especially when it comes to the research of relation between parental mediation and occurrence of frequent childrens purchase requests and child-parent conflict, both induced by TV advertising exposure. In fact, there is only one study that examined this subject made by Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005). Thus, study conducted in this work refers to preschool children and their parents that are residents of municipality of Paradiso, Switzerland. The study was proposed to pursue the following questions, aiming to contribute to the previous research: 1. Is any of TV advertising exposure mediation strategies, active or restrictive, strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)?
2. Is there a difference between Pluralistic, Protective, Consensual and Laissez-faire parents in type of purchase denial they make (c) and, are some types of denials strongly related to occurrence of childs purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)?
1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
In order to better understand the effects of television advertising on children and their family, researchers have focused on the process of interaction between parent and child regarding the childs consumer behaviour. The child must usually make purchase request to his/her parents, who then yield to the request or deny it. This mediation of childs purchase request enables parents to make instruction about the realities of the marketplace or results in parent-child conflict (Robertson 1979). However, according to Fujioka and Austin (2002), while the familys mediating role is well documented, the nature and consequences of parental mediation of TV advertising effects are not very clear. Therefore, this study gives a contribution to previous research, which contains a number of gaps and biases (Livingstone 2005, 277) and where most research is conducted in America, with little research in other countries or cultural contexts.
In Switzerland there are several federal and self-regulatory codes to regulate advertising to children. Switzerland is not member of the European Union, so the European Law does not apply. The most important law regulating advertising in Switzerland is the Federal Law Against Unfair Competition, which bans any unfair and wrong behaviour or business conduct that is deceptive or in any way contravenes the principle of good faith. However, Switzerland has no specific law that deals with advertising to children (see for a review Hofer and Bieri 2005). In addition, there is a possibility that Swiss children are exposed to TV advertising of bordering countries Italy, Germany or France. For example, Italian TV channels (especially commercial networks) reaching Italian-speaking part of Switzerland might carry heavy levels of TV commercials directed at children.
According to the authors knowledge, there has not been made any similar study in Switzerland. Therefore, the results of this study may have implications for the people involved in daily care of children in the infancy school of Paradiso as well as for academics investigating unintended TV advertising effects on children and parental mediation of those effects on their children. On the other hand, it might contribute to an understanding of more general issue of when behaviour and consumption can be predicted more accurately. 1. 5. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS The study is organized as follows. This introduction chapter is divided in five small parts. First gives an overview about consumer socialization and the ways by which children learn from their parents. Second part is focused on statement of the problem where is presented the state of research about parental mediation in general and where is emphasized its importance. In the third part, research questions are introduced. Fourth part is focused on significance of the study and is followed by this part about the structure of the thesis. The introduction chapter is followed by a background and motivation for the research that is divided into three parts. Part one reviews the literature about effects of television advertising on parent-child conflict guiding from childrens TV advertising exposure until occurrence of parent-child conflict. Part two is divided in two sections were the first focuses on reviewed literature about parental mediation of TV advertising exposure and the second focuses on reviewed literature about parental mediation of childs product desire and purchase requests. Based on discussions and conclusions at the end of both sections, there are formulated research questions. Chapter 3 discusses research model where is highlighted a parental participation in the path from childrens TV advertising exposure to parent-child conflict. Therefore, the model is focused on parental mediation and presents variables that appear to be related among themselves (TV advertising exposure, childrens purchase request and parentchild conflict). This chapter continues with discussion about the research methodology applied in the exploratory study, including sample and data collection procedure,
measures, and the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the hypothesis and answering research questions. Data analysis and results are presented in Chapter 4. Main findings are discussed in Chapter 5 where, at the end, research limitations as well as future research avenues are offered.
CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH
CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH
2.1. THE
CONFLICT
RELATION AND EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ADVERTISING ON PARENT-CHILD
2.1.1. Literature review According to Rossiter (1979), two types of general effects of childrens exposure to TV advertising may be discerned. Fist type is the cumulative exposure effect that refers to the impact of TV advertising on children as they grow older and thus are exposed to more commercials. The second type is the heavy-viewing effect that refers to the impact of TV advertising on children, who, within age groups, are more heavily exposed to commercials than their peers. Beside these general effects, there are three categories of specific effects: cognitive effects or childrens ability to understand the nature and purpose of TV advertising; attitudinal effects or childrens feelings toward TV commercials and their reaction to TV advertising as social institution; and behavioural effects or extent to which children are persuaded to want, and to ask for, advertised products. While TV advertising directed at children appears to be effective in creating positive attitudes and behaviour toward advertised products, there are some studies that discuss unintended outcomes of such advertising. Since this work deals with relation between parental mediation and parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising, this section focuses on review of literature about parent-child conflict as unintended behavioural effect of TV advertising.
A number of early studies have noted a correspondence between the products children like and request and those advertised on TV (Galst and White 1976; Robertson and Rossiter
1976; Resnik and Stern 1977). A child must normally request a product from parents, who then yield to the request or deny it. This mediation of childrens requests presents parents with an opportunity both for positive instruction of the child about the marketplace, and for conflict and resentment (Robertson 1979). Review that follows is based on few studies that investigate advertising exposure, purchase requests and parent-child conflict, and relationship among some of them. Galst and White (1976) study consisted in two parts - an experimental televiewing study conducted within the childs school in order to determine commercial-reinforcement value for each child, and a field study involving the direct observation of the childs purchaseinfluencing attempts at the supermarket. In the study participated 41 children (20 girls and 21 boys) aged 3-11 to 5-11 (mean age 4 to 7) and their mothers. All participating children were attending one of two affiliated Montessori nursery schools located in New York, USA. In the first study each child was observed individually in a room within their school while watching the program with commercials. The program with commercials would stop playing at intervals and the child had to press button in order to continue to watch. There were videotaped three half-hour television programs viewed heavily by children and commercials were presented as a typical segment preceding the introduction of the program. The child was told to watch the program as long as desired. Children were allowed to watch only one program at each sitting, and at least one week interval separated each television-viewing session. In the second study, the same children were observed while shopping with their mothers. The researchers observed how often child was making an independent purchasing request (by asking, pointing, putting in the basket, or grabbing for the product), buying an item with his or her own money, or making a decision when given a choice by the parent. After this second study, the purpose of the experiments was explained to parents and parents had to fill in questionnaire about their children television exposure at home. Over four-day period, parents had to mark programs that their children watched for 15 minutes and more. Program listings for all 4 days were provided to them.
This study demonstrated that purchasing-influencing attempts at the supermarket were related to the reinforcement value of television commercials and to the amount of TV viewing children were exposed to at home. The major finding was that, the harder a child worked to maintain commercials on a TV monitor, as compared with the program narrative, and the more commercial television he or she watched at home, the greater the number of purchase-influencing attempts directed at his or her mother at the supermarket he or she made. The significance of this finding is that a behavioural measure of both childrens television-viewing behaviour and their purchase-influencing attempts instead of reliance on mothers reports has determined that television commercials are related to at least one aspect of childrens consumer behaviour their purchase-influencing attempts at supermarket. As conclusion, researchers said that is hard to escape the suggestion that children who may be more tuned in to television commercials may be developing an attitude toward consumerism and product acquisition from commercial television. The fact that hours of television watching per week correlated significantly with purchase influencing attempts further supports this possibility. Moreover, this study demonstrated a correspondence between the foods that dominated childrens TV commercials and the food products that dominated childrens requests at the supermarket. Ward and Wackman (1972) study investigated childrens purchase influence attempts, parental yielding and occurrence of conflict. Self-administrated questionnaires were collected from 132 mothers of 5 to 12 years old children in Boston metropolitan area, USA. Mothers social status ranged from upper to upper-middle classes. The items in the questionnaire asked mothers to report on the behaviour of one of their children. Mothers were asked to indicate the frequency of their childs purchase influence attempts for 22 products that were heavily advertised, but varied in price, frequency of purchase, and relevance to the child. Analysis of data indicated that children frequently attempted to influence purchases for food products, but the attempts decreased with age. Mothers of younger children (5 to 7 years old) indicated frequent influence attempts for game and toy purchases.
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Data indicate across most product categories that mothers tend to yield to influence attempts the older the child is. The correlation between childrens purchase influence attempts and mothers yielding was positive and significant. Clearly, children who ask for products more often receive them more often also. However, not many parents failed to yield to purchase influence attempts. The relationship between age and influence attempts approached significance and was negative. A positive correlation was obtained between age and parental yielding. Thus, while parents may receive more purchase influence attempts from young children, they are more likely to act on them as the child grows older. The data indicate a significant positive relationship between conflict and influence attempts suggesting that purchase influence attempts may be a part of a general pattern of disagreement and conflict between parent and children or even their cause. No relationship was observed between conflict and yielding. Restrictions on viewing and yielding were negatively related. Thus the more restrictions parents place on a childs television viewing, the less they yield to his/her purchase influence attempts. Interestingly, however, no relationship obtained between restrictions and influence attempts. Finally, a weak positive relationship was noticed between attitudes toward advertising and yielding. Mothers with more positive attitudes toward advertising were more likely to yield than mothers with less favourable attitudes; their children were not more likely to ask for products than other children, however. The study of Sheikh and Moleski (1977) employed the story completion method in order to investigate conflict in the family over commercials. This procedure involves presenting a child with a story beginning that involves a child of the same gender and age engaged in a certain activity. The child is instructed to complete the story by telling what the main character is thinking and feeling, and what happens as a result of the presented circumstances.
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Respondents in this study were 48 children from the first, third and fifth grades in the Milwaukee metropolitan area, USA. Each of the three groups consisted of equal number of boys and girls originating from the upper-middle class families. Three story beginnings were used and in each one the gender of the main character varied according to the gender of the respondent. Each story stem involved the main character in the presence of his or her parents, watching one of his or her favourite television programs which was interrupted repeatedly by a particular commercial. The major difference in the three story stems lay in the nature of the product being advertised: it was a food product, a toy, or a clothing item. Immediately following the presentation of the story stem, specific questions were presented one by one to the children. In response to the first question, Do you think Johnny (Mary) felt like asking his/her parents to buy him/her that .? Over 90% of the children answered affirmative. No significant grade or gender differences were found. The response to the question Did he/she ask both his/her father and mother, or only his/her father or only his/her mother? revealed the following preferences: both father and mother were mentioned as the target of requests by 43%; father alone was chosen by 10.3% and mother alone by 46.5% of the children. A larger portion of the boys than girls perceived themselves asking only their father. In response to the question What did they (he/she) say? over 66% of children felt their parents would yield to their purchase requests. Response to the final, open-ended question What happened when they (he/she) said no? were coded into the following five categories, which are listed in order of the overall frequency with which they occurred: unpleasant affect (33.33%), acceptance (23.19%), aggression (22.71%), persistence (15.97%), and irrelevant response (4.8%). Unpleasant affect involved feelings that were of negative nature (he felt sad, she cried); acceptance indicated approval of parental denial (he said OK and went out to play); aggression referred to the explanation of hostility by the child (he was mad); persistence was coded for continued or repeated requests (she asked again); the irrelevant category
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reflected responses that were not pertinent to the question asked. Girls exhibited significantly more unpleasant affect than the boys; decrease of unpleasant affect was significant from the third to the fifth grade; decrease of acceptance was significant from the first to the third grade; aggressive responses significantly increased from first to third grade. The study made by Goldberg and Gorn (1978) examined a number of unintended outcomes of TV advertising directed at children. The experiment was designed to test whether a childs disappointment and unhappiness upon failure to receive an advertised toy were in function of exposure to TV commercials for the toy. It was hypothesized that a child who saw a toy commercial on TV would express more unhappiness when denied a request for a toy than would a child who did not see the commercial but knew of the toys existence. This study also examined the potential influence of TV advertising on parentchild relations, like conflict that may follow denials of requested toy and which, TV or parental guidance (parent advice about toy inappropriateness) is the child more likely to heed. Four to five year old preschoolers were drawn from nursery schools in Montreal, Canada and were exposed to commercials for familiar toy in the context of a ten-minute neutral program appropriate for preschoolers. The control group saw the program without commercials but was familiar with the toy. This assessment tended to demonstrate how much the commercial enhanced the value of the toy by placing it in an attractive context. First experimental group saw the program with commercial for the toy at the beginning of the program and at the end of it. The second experimental group saw the program with commercials on two consecutive days. The data were pooled for the three schools and responses in each of the schools revealed without difference. When children were told that their mother expressed the preference for the ball (and not for advertised toy), 79% of control group accepted her judgment and expressed that they liked the ball too. In the case of the first experimental group, 54% of all children followed their mother judgment on both measurement days. The result in the second experimental group was 41% immediate measurement and 54% one day later.
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In the same experiment, Goldberg and Gorn used a second operationalization of the conflict. After exposure to the preschoolers program described previously, children were told a story about a boy who asked his father for the advertised toy, but did not receive it. Then the children were presented with pictures representing two hypothetical responses of the boy. The first picture showed a child happily hugging his father, while the second showed a child walking away from his father. The children were asked how they thought the boy in the story would react. Three of five children (60%) in the control group felt that a boy still wanted to play with his dad. Regarding the children that were exposed to commercial this percentage was smaller but only for one group this percentage was significant (only 39% opted for playing with dad). The results showed that children who had seen the commercial more often chose the picture of the boy walking away from his father, although the differences between the two groups was statistically significant in only one from four measurements. In Atkins supermarket study (1975c, for a review, see Goldberg and Gorn 1978; Isler, Popper and Ward 1987), one-sixth of a group of children surveyed said they argue with their mothers a lot after denial of toy requests while one-third responded they argued sometimes. In the study, which was based on self-reports, participated 738 children ranging from preschoolers to fifth-graders. By directly observing purchase situations in supermarkets, Atkin (1975b, for a review see Goldberg and Gorn 1978; Isler, Popper and Ward 1987) found that conflict followed two-thirds of mothers denials of childrens cereal requests and children expressed unhappiness one-half of the time. However, such conflict is described as being seldom intense or persistent. Atkin notes that conflict and unhappiness were greatest among 6- to 8-year-olds. Isler, Popper and Ward (1987) made a diary study with central objective to describe the intrafamily dynamics associated with childrens requests for product and services, frequency with which children ask for things, the nature of products and services they request, how and where they make requests, and how they respond if their mothers do not accede to the product request. They also examined the nature of mothers response to childrens requests and their perception of the key reasons for childrens specific request.
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250 families were sampled from various socioeconomic areas in Boston, USA. Participating mothers completed diaries each day for 28 days for one child in the family. The final sample consisted of 118 5- to 7-years-olds, 102 9- to 11-years-olds, and an exploratory subsample of 30 3- to 4-year-olds. Regarding the results of this study, although the exploratory sample of 30 3- to 4-year-olds was relatively small, results indicate that these children make more requests than older children. The location of childrens requests differed by age, probably reflecting the greater tendency of mothers to take younger children shopping. Nearly 40% of the requests by 3- to 4-year-olds were made while shopping and 45% at home, while 32% of the requests by 5- to 7-year-olds were made while shopping and 56 % at home. Regarding the nature of childs requests, mothers reported that most children simply ask for products. Pleading, defined as repetitive and anxious asking with a single request episode, occurred for only about 11% (3-4 years olds) and 15% (5-7 years olds); seen it on TV occurred slightly more than 6 %. In 51% of the cases, mothers did not mind buying and said yes immediately; while no or stall responses were noted for higher priced items. In 14% of cases, mothers did not mind buying but discussed before saying yes and in 16% of cases either said yes but not to the brand child wanted, said no but agreed to buy something else instead or said maybe sometime but not now. When it comes to plead it seems that mothers tend to discuss and explain before giving positive or negative response. Finally, 61% of requests based on TV advertising were granted and about 35% were characterized by a yes, with a discussion. On the other hand, among requests that were denied, those based on TV advertising were most likely to elicit stall responses (55%) and no with an explanation why (31%). According to the results, mothers tend to give an affirmative answer right away more easily to very young children and to use less less with discussion than with older children. If they deny the requested product, it seems that discussion is more present with
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very young children. For those requests that were refused, 51% of children took it okay, 26% was disappointed and 17% argued a little. While took it okay percent reduce with childs age, other two responses increase. Mothers perceptions about main reasons for 3- to 4-year-olds requests are saw in store and saw TV ad, while for 5- to 7- year-olds requests are saw in store, sibling/friend has it and saw TV ad, respectively. Reports of mothers refusals leading to conflict were rare. Unfortunately, researchers did not made correlation between type of denial and occurrence of conflict (that was rare) but, as may bee seen from data, mother either explained her denial (31%) or said maybe (55%) as response to childs purchasing request induced by TV advertising. Robertson et al. (1989) made a cross-cultural study in which they assessed the televisionviewing behaviour of American, Japanese and British children and examined some determinants of product-requesting behaviour and parent-child conflict. While doing so, authors enclose the data about childrens viewing levels of commercial television, their product-requesting behaviour, and levels of parent-child conflict and examine relationships between amount of watching and product-request frequency, and between request frequency and parent-child conflict. Determinants that were examined are independence of the child from parents (in doing things), demanding nature of the child (the extent to which the child pushes the parents to have his or her own way and the extent to which the child demands things) and the extent to which the child communicates with his or her parents. A survey and diary methodology was used. Studies involved mothers maintaining for two week period two diaries, one for purchase requests and one for television viewing. Each mother was asked to observe and record unobtrusively the childs purchase requests and television-viewing behaviour, for the one child in the household between the ages of 3 and 10 years. At the end of two week period, a questionnaire designed to investigate parentchild interaction, demographics and television specific information was completed by each respondent.
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The sample included 84 American, 118 Japanese and 65 English families. Participating families were drawn from middle-class backgrounds. Even with these limitations of a sample size, authors determined conditional relationships that can be summarized as follows: the more demanding the child is, the greater television viewing, the more requests to parents, and the greater the parent-child conflict; the higher the level of television viewing, the more the requests and the greater the resulting parent-child conflict. The authors found that there is no relationship between parental rule making and childs demanding neither between parental rule making and childs communicating at the individual level. The coefficients responding to both, the relationship of the communicating or the relationship of independence with TV viewing, number of requests and occurrence of the conflict were not significant. The Buijzen and Valkenburg (2003a) made a study based on a vote-counting analysis that is a formalized count of the number of studies that either produce or fail to produce statistically significant findings in the hypothesized direction. In this study, vote-counting analysis provides a comprehensive review of the related research literature. Researchers have modelled the hypothesized relations between advertising and three unintended effects. The model describes the advertising-effects hypotheses with regard to materialism, parentchild conflict, and unhappiness that have received research attention. According to the authors, although it is possible that advertising exposure directly influences parentchild conflict, it seems more plausible that this relation between exposure to advertising and parentchild conflict is mediated by childrens purchase requests and parental denial of these requests. According to this mediational hypothesis, advertising (a) leads to an increased number of requests for advertised products on the part of children, which (b) leads to an increased number of product denials (given that not all requests can be granted), which then (c) causes conflict between a parent and a child. Researchers concluded that The results of the correlational and experimental studies are in agreement with the hypothesis that advertising enhances parentchild conflict. However, the majority of the studies are correlational. The sole experiment that has been conducted focused exclusively on children in early childhood, and resulted in only a
17
partial confirmation of the hypothesis. Therefore, the scientifically conservative conclusion is that advertising enhances parentchild conflict, but that decisive evidence is still lacking (452). The Buijzen and Valkenburg study (2003b), based on a parent-child dyad survey
conducted in February 2002, had the aim to investigate how television advertising is related to childrens purchase requests, materialism, disappointment, life dissatisfaction, and family conflict. In a first step, a conceptual model based on existing hypotheses was developed (2003a), in a second step, this model was tested using a sample of 360 parentchild (8- to 12-year-olds) dyads. A parent-child sample was chosen because some variables in the study (e.g., advertising exposure) researchers assumed to be more accurately measured among children, whereas other variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, parental mediation) researchers assumed to be more adequately measured among parents. However, to check whether children were able to produce reliable responses on the advertising effects variables, authors measured these variables (i.e., materialism, purchase requests, and parentchild conflict) among both children and parents. The children were recruited from five elementary schools in urban and rural districts in the Netherlands. In all, 427 children completed a questionnaire. The questionnaires were administered in the childrens regular classrooms by a trained examiner. After completing the questionnaire the children were given a parent questionnaire to take home. A total of 360 questionnaires (84%) were returned. This resulted in a total sample of 360 parentchild dyads with various economic backgrounds. In the sample of parent-child dyads, all educational levels of parents were represented, although most of the parents were relatively well educated: 25% had completed high school, 35% were college graduates, and 28% had masters degrees. The final child sample consisted of 175 boys (48.6%) and 185 girls (51.4%). The parent sample consisted of 291 mothers and 61 fathers, and 8 parents who did not indicate their gender. The findings of this study show that advertising is positively and directly related to childrens purchase requests and materialism. It is also positively, though indirectly (mediated by advertising-induced purchase requests), related to family conflict, disappointment, and life dissatisfaction.
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Researchers found a stronger advertisingpurchase request relation for younger children than for older children and stronger childrens purchase requests parent-child conflict relation for younger children and for boys. Relation between purchase requests and parentchild conflict was stronger in low-income families than in high-income families. 2.1.2. Discussion and conclusions The presented studies were based either on parent-child questionnaires, diary, observations, completion stories, review of previous research or an experiment. This means that there are some important differences between the employed methods where non-experimental methodology was predominantly used. Most of the studies are correlational which means that they deal with relations between variables that do not imply causality. Some of the presented research was conducted with elementary school children and other with kindergartners. Findings among studies about relation between parent-child conflict occurrence and childs age are not in accordance. In these studies, parentchild conflict has been examined in two ways. In some research, children or parents have been asked to indicate how often they had a conflict with the other party about product purchases. In other research, parentchild conflict has been indicated by childrens negative reactions to parental denial of a purchase request. One of the studies is a research review study based on a vote-counting analysis that is a formalized count of the number of studies that either produce or fail to produce statistically significant findings in the hypothesized direction. Galst and White (1976) study is significant to the extent that it is based on experiment and its main finding is that television commercials are related to at least one aspect of childrens consumer behaviour their purchase-influencing attempts at supermarket. Sheikh and Moleski (1977) found that 90% of all children thought that character in the story after seeing a commercial would make a purchase request to his/her parents. 22.7% of children said that the character would be aggressive after parental denial and 16% that
19
character would be persistent. The researchers did not compute the correlation between purchase request and occurrence of conflict. Isler, Popper and Ward (1987) found that conflict induced by TV advertising was rare (17% of children argued a little). They reported also type of denial, but unfortunately they did not made correlation between type of denial and conflict occurrence. Atkin (1975) found that conflict followed two-thirds of mothers denials of childrens cereal requests and children expressed unhappiness one-half of the time. However, such conflict is described as being seldom intense or persistent. Ward and Wackman (1972) found the significant positive relationship between purchase requests (for products highly advertised) and parent-child conflict. Buijzen and Valkenburg (2003b) found the correlation between TV advertising exposure and purchase requests, and between TV advertising exposure and parent-child conflict (through purchase requests). In previous study (2003a) based on literature research, these researchers concluded that there is correlation between TV advertising exposure and parent-child conflict but that conflict is rather mediated by purchase requests and parental denial (frequent purchase requests relate to frequent parental denials which, in turn relate to conflict). Robertson and al. (1989) determined conditional relationships that can be summarized as follows: the more demanding the child is, the greater television viewing, the more requests to parents, and the greater the parent-child conflict; the higher the level of television viewing, the more the requests and the greater the resulting parent-child conflict. The only experimental study about relation between TV advertising exposure and conflict, the study that relates cause and effect, is a study made by Goldber and Gorn (1978). Regarding the relationship between TV advertising exposure and parent-child conflict these researchers found significant relationship in only one from four measurements. The most of the studies reviewed are correlational and are in agreement with the hypothesis that there is a relationship between TV advertising exposure and parentchild conflict. However it seems that this relationship is not direct but is mediated by childs purchase request and parents denial.
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2.2. PARENTAL
REQUESTS
MEDIATION OF
TV
ADVERTISING EXPOSURE AND CHILDS PURCHASE
By mediation, researchers denote some form of active efforts by parents and others to translate the complexities of the physical and social environment, as well as the television as a medium, into terms capable of comprehension by children at various levels of cognitive development (Desmond et al. 1985). Parental mediation is often considered the most effective tool in management of televisions influence on children (W.A. Donohue and Meyer 1984, cited from Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005, 153). Accordingly, consumer behaviour researchers examined relation between parental mediation and unintended TV advertising effects like increased purchase requests, parent-child conflict, materialism, and childs unhappiness. In the present study several attempts have been made to unambiguously classify the various routes by which parents can mediate television messages. Finally, based on review of literature on media effects and TV advertising effects (Robertson 1979; Fujioka and Austin 2002; Buijzen and Valkenburg 2003b; Corder-Bolz 1980; Carlson, Grossbart and Walsh 1990; Valkenburg et al. 1999), two types of parental mediation of childrens TV advertising exposure have been identified. The first type includes intentional activities that are parental mediation strategies specifically related to advertising. Such activities, presented in two following sections, are (a) making restrictions on a childs TV advertising viewing, and (b) active mediation via critical discussion of television messages with a child. The second type includes a more subtle, often unintentional activities related to more general family consumer communication environment (or patterns). Last Section of this Chapter is focused on parental mediation of both childs desire for advertised product and childs purchase requests, precisely on type of purchase denial parents make as response to childs purchase requests.
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2.2.1 Family communication environment 2.2.1.1 Literature review Family Communication Environment sets the context for parent-child communication about consumption and consumer learning (Moschis 1985). It is composed of two uncorrelated dimensions of communication structure (Moore and Moschis 1981; Moschis 1985; Carlson, Grossbart, and Walsh 1990; Carlson, Walsh, Laczniak, and Grossbart 1994). The first dimension is called socio-oriented. Parental messages characterized as sociooriented promote deference to parents, and monitoring and controlling of childrens consumer behaviour. The second type of communication dimension, called conceptoriented, reflects parental messages that encourage children to develop their own skills and competence as consumers. These two general dimensions of parent-child communication produce a four-fold typology of family communication patterns that refer to the frequency, type, and quality of communication that takes place among family members. Family communication patterns are: protective, pluralistic, consensual and laissez-faire (Figure 2.2.1.1). Protective families are highly socio-oriented and promote deference to parents and family order, and limit their childrens exposure to information on which to base their views. Pluralistic families are highly concept-oriented and tend to stress issue-oriented communication and maintain a relatively horizontal parent-child relationship. Children of pluralistic parents are encouraged to explore ideas and express their own opinions. Laissez-faire families lack to emphasize both dimensions of communication; there is a little parent-child communication in these families and, as consequence, parental impact on children. According to the Corder-Bolz (1980) when secondary socialization sources (mass communication media) provide information in an environment in which there are no primary socialization sources (parents, teachers, institutions, organization, groups), the secondary socialization sources can have a direct impact upon a persons beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour, or may reinforce certain peer values. Consensual families stress both types of communication; they encourage children to explore ideas (concept-orientation), but
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children are constrained to develop and maintain conceptions consonant with those of their parents (socio-orientation).
Figure 2.2.1.1. Moschis Family-communication patterns (adapted from Carlson, Grossbart, and Walsh 1990, 28) In the following text, a few studies that are presented investigated relationship between parent communication patterns and parents efforts to mediate media exposure, interaction with children, and parental yielding. Carlson, Grossbart and Walsh (1990) conducted a study that examined parent-child communication patterns and mothers consumer-socialization tendencies. In order to do so, researchers investigated relationships between mother-child communication patterns and mothers goals for childrens consumer socialization, efforts to mediate effects of media exposure, interaction with children, and responses to purchase requests. Selfadministrated questionnaires were distributed to mothers via children in three public schools (grades K-6) in variety of socioeconomic areas in a moderate-sized city in USA and 451 usable cases were retained for analysis. Results of this study suggest that mothers communication orientations are related to consumer socialization tendencies. Pluralistic mothers discuss ads and coview with their children more than Laissez-faires and Protectives; impose less control on childrens TV viewing than Consensuals; consider
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childs opinion more than Laissez-faires and Protectives; yield more than all other but refuse both with and without explanation less often than Protectives and Consensuals. Protective mothers discuss ads less and coview less than Pluralistics and Consensuals; impose the same controls on childrens TV viewing like Pluralistics and Laissez-faires; least apt to consider childs opinion; yield less than all other mothers; refuse both with and without explanation more often than Laissez-faires and Pluralistics. Laissez-faire mothers discuss ads less and coview less than Pluralistics and Consensuals; control TV viewing less than Consensuals; consider childs opinion less than Pluralistics and Consensuals but more than Protectives; yield less than Pluralistics, but more than Consensual and Protectives; refuse both with and without explanation less often than Protectives and Consensuals. Consensual mothers discuss ads more and coview more than Laissez-faire and Protectives; control viewing more than all other mothers; consider childs opinion more than Laissezfaires and Protectives; yield more than Protectives, but less than Pluralistics and Laissezfaires and refuse both with and without explanation more than Laisse-faires and Pluralistics. Findings generally confirm consistency between mothers concept-orientation and consumer goals, discussing ads, sharing of media and shopping experiences, considering childrens opinions, yielding to requests, and granting purchasing independence. Motherchild discussions about ads also occur more often in the families with more educated fathers. According to his study, yielding is more likely with sons and in families with higher income or less-educated fathers. Rose, Bush, and Kahle (1998), using consumer socialization as a theoretical foundation, examined cross-nationally a family communication patterns and general attitudes toward television advertising among mothers of children three to eight year of age. The sample was obtained from two medium-size cities, one in Japan and the other in USA. Schools were selected to match in socioeconomic status (middle to upper middle class). The number of usable questionnaires for analysis was 243 in Japan and 418 in USA.
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Main findings of this study are that Pluralistic and Consensual mothers have the highest mediation (discussing TV advertising frequently) and most negative attitudes toward advertising. Laissez-faire mothers have the most positive attitudes toward and the lowest mediation of their childrens exposure to television advertising. Consensual mothers reported higher levels of control of TV viewing than all other mothers. There was no significant difference between Pluralistic and Protective mothers that maintained greater control than Laissez-faire mothers. Fujioka and Austin (2002) examined the relationship between reported family communication patterns and parental mediation styles. A telephone survey (n = 216) was conducted with parents of third-, sixth-, and ninth-graders in two Washington state communities, USA. Those parents (60% women, 40% men) whose child had completed an in-class survey prior to the phone survey were asked to participate in the study using a randomization procedure to obtain male and female respondents. The study obtained a 78% response rate. The survey indicated that 62% of the respondents had completed college. The respondents family income was relatively higher than the state median income. To investigate the links between general family communication norms and televisionspecific behaviors, this study tested hypothesized relationships between family communication patterns constructs and parental mediation strategies, coviewing, and the use of the new television ratings system. As hypothesized, concept orientation predicted parents frequent use of both negative mediation (counter-reinforcement of television messages) and of positive mediation (endorsement of television messages) as well as frequent discussion of issues more generally. No relationship was predicted or found between socio orientation and discussion-oriented behaviour such as negative mediation or general discussion of issues. The recent study conducted by Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) is presented in the next section. The main finding of this study is that concept-oriented consumer communication
25
is more related than socio-oriented consumer communication to both less childrens purchase requests and less parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising exposure. In addition, authors discus congruence between concept-orientation and active mediation as well as between socio-orientation and restrictive mediation. 2.2.1.2. Discussion and conclusions with propositions for the current study The presented studies used surveying as a research method. Only Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) study included parent-children responses, while all other studies are based on parental reports only. All studies but Fujioka and Austin (2002) study dealt with TV advertising, which examined relationship between parental communication patterns and mediation strategies used. Carlson, Grossbart and Walsh (1990) and Rose, Bush, and Kahle (1998) study included parents of kindergartners, while other two studies included parents of elementary school children. However, analysed studies bring to congruent conclusions. According to the studies reviewed, Pluralistic and Consensual mothers use active TV advertising mediation strategies and active mediation in general, more than Protective and Laissez-faire mothers. In addition, more than all other mothers consider childs opinion. Consensual mothers are most restrictive among all other mothers. Pluralistic mothers yield more than all other mothers. Protective mothers are least apt to childs opinion. It seems plausible that patterns of parental communication affect the extent to which a parent makes use of restrictive or active mediation strategies. According to Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005, 162) active mediation and concept-oriented communication are conceptually related, as are restrictive and socio-oriented communication. According to these authors active mediation and concept-oriented communication are both focused on family discussions and increasing childrens understanding and autonomy, whereas restrictive mediation and socio-oriented communication are mainly focused on protecting children from advertising. Based on this literature review, evidence is significant to enable formulation of specific hypothesis:
26
H1: Concept-oriented parents are apt to use active TV advertising mediation strategy, while socio-oriented parents are apt to use restrictive TV advertising mediation strategy. There are two facts, which emerge from this part of literature review, that should be further investigated and that are considered in last section of this chapter: Socio-oriented (Protective and Consensual) mothers deny purchase requests with explanation more often than Pluralistic and Laissez-faire mothers. Concept-oriented (Pluralistic and Consensual mothers) parental communication is related to less purchase requests and less parent-child conflict. Since the concept-oriented parents are more apt to discussion with children, it seems plausible that they are also more likely to interpret and explain their purchase denial to their children, which might be, in turn, related to less child-parent conflict (see Isler, Popper and Ward (1987) in Section 2.1.1.). 2.2.2 Active and restrictive parental mediation of childs TV advertising exposure 2.2.2.1. Literature review The advertising mediation literature has so far identified two strategies that parents use to mediate childrens TV advertising exposure: active and restrictive advertising mediation (Wiman 1983; Carlson, Grossbart and Walsh 1990; Buijzen and Valkenburg 2003b, 2005). Active mediation (or instructive, or evaluative mediation) includes making conscious comments and judgments about television commercials and actively explaining the nature and selling intent of advertising, either during or after viewing. Restrictive mediation (or rule making mediation) involves protecting children from TV advertising by reducing their exposure to it. This type of mediation may include family rules restricting childrens viewing of commercial television channels. It has been argued
27
that because young children lack the cognitive abilities to resist commercial messages, reducing their exposure to television may sometimes be the only effective way to counteract its negative effects (Robinson et al., 2001). The research on parental TV advertising mediation strategies is very scarce. Few studies that have investigated parental advertising mediation strategies have focused on their relation with childrens understanding of TV advertising (Wiman 1983), their attitudes toward advertising (Wiman 1983), their requests for advertised products (Ward and Wackman 1972; Wiman 1983; Robinson et al. 2001; Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005), and parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising exposure (Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005). Those studies are presented in the text that follows. In Wimans study (1983), parental influence on third and fourth graders cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural responses to TV advertising was explored in structured personal interviews with 222 children and their parents. The purpose of this research was to explore the role of parents in establishing the environment within which children encounter and respond to television advertising. The dimensions of parental influence addressed were the frequency of parent-child interactions about TV advertising and commercials, and parental control of the childs television viewing habits. Interviews were conducted with children and their parents simultaneously in the respondents homes, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. The findings suggest that children whose parents consider themselves as more strictly controlling their childs viewing behaviour have more negative attitudes toward television advertising. That is, parents with more negative attitude toward television advertising reported stronger efforts to control their childs viewing. These children also exhibit a better understanding of the purpose and nature of TV advertising and are from a higher socioeconomic level and have better educated parents. Finally, the data suggest that these children make fewer purchase requests to their parents. It would appear, then, that parents who make more of an effort to exercise control over how much and what type of television their children watch are establishing an atmosphere which is more critical of commercials and which discourages purchase requests. At the same time, it seems to be an atmosphere that is conducive to learning about advertising.
28
It was found that children who talk with their parents more frequently about TV advertising and commercials make more purchase requests and tend to have attitudes about TV advertising which are further removed from those of their parents than do children who interact less frequently. Author suggested that It may be that both frequent verbal exchanges about TV advertising and frequent purchase requests are associated with an environment which is characterized by a freer flow of discussion with fewer constraints. If more frequent interaction is indicative of a more open environment with a free flow of ideas, then the gap between the attitudes of parents and children might be result of more independent thinking and expression on the part of the children (17). Although the author for this conclusion says that is suggestive and that it needs further examination, his conclusion is congruent with characteristics of highly concept-oriented families. Robinson et al (2001) tested the effects of a classroom intervention to reduce television, videotape, and video game use on children's toy purchase requests, in a school-based randomized controlled trial. Third- and fourth-grade children (mean age, 8.9 years) in two sociodemographically and scholastically matched public elementary schools were entitled to participate, in San Jose, CA, USA. The sample contained 88 children and 66 parents in the intervention school, and 87 children and 75 parents in the control school. Children in only intervention elementary school received a 18-lesson, 6-month classroom curriculum to reduce television, videotape, and video game use. Lessons included selfmonitoring and reporting of television, videotape, and video game use to motivate children to reduce the time they spent in these activities. These lessons were followed by a TV turnoff during which children were challenged to watch no television or videotapes and play no video games for 10 days. After the turnoff, children were encouraged to follow a 7hr/wk budget. Newsletters were sent home to motivate parents to help children stay within their budgets and suggested strategies for limiting television, videotape, and videogame use for the entire family. This intervention targeted media use and did not attempt to teach critical viewing skills or antiadvertising knowledge and attitudes.
29
In both schools, in September (before intervention) and April (after intervention) of a single school year, children and parents reported children's prior week's purchase requests for toys seen on television. After intervention, children in the intervention school were significantly less likely to report toy purchase requests than children in the control school. Among intervention school children, reductions in self-reported purchase requests were also associated with reductions in television viewing. However, there was no significant difference between schools in parent reports of children's requests for toy purchases, which authors explain by small sample of parents who participated in interviews. Study made by Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005), which is a second part of the study made previously (2003b) by the same researchers, investigated which types of parental mediation are most effective in counteracting potentially undesirable advertising effects. In a parent-child survey, authors investigate how various types of parental mediation affect the influence of television advertising on materialism, purchase requests, and parent-child conflict. To measure parent-child conflict about purchase requests children were asked how often there was a conflict after denial of a purchase request for four product types. 360 parentchild dyads participated in a survey. Children were from 8 to 12 years of age. All participants were recruited from five elementary schools in urban and rural districts in the Netherlands. The questionnaires were administered in the childrens regular classrooms by a trained examiner. After completing the questionnaire, which took about 25 minutes, the children were given a parent questionnaire to take home. Authors investigated how different styles of advertising mediation (active vs. restrictive) and family consumer communication (concept-oriented vs. socio-oriented) moderated the relations between the childrens advertising exposure and their materialism, purchase requests, and conflicts with their parents. The results showed that active advertising mediation and concept-oriented consumer communication were related negatively to the occurrence of unintended effects of advertising. The use of restrictive mediation did not significantly influence relationship between advertising exposure and purchase requests and between purchase requests and parent-child conflict. In contrast, active mediation significantly made those relationships weaker.
30
There is a study made by Ward and Wackman (1972), described in Section 2.1., were researchers found no significant relationship between restriction of TV viewing and purchase requests. But, the more restrictions parents place on a childs television viewing, the less they yield to his/her purchase influence attempts. In addition, Robertson et al. (1989) found that there is no relationship between parental restrictiveness and childs demanding (the more demanding the child is, the greater television viewing, the more requests to parents, and the greater the parent-child conflict). 2.2.2.2. Discussion and conclusions with propositions for the current study The presented studies were based on parent-child self reports, interviews, or questionnaire. The research was made with elementary school children (third and fourth graders) and is questionable if the main finding can be assigned to kindergartners. The three studies included restriction of childs TV viewing in general (Ward and Wackman 1972; Wiman 1983; Robinson et al 2001) while the fourth one included restriction of TV advertising viewing also (Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005). Three studies are based on parental mediation. The Robinson et al. study (2001) included teachers mediation and invitation to parents to participate in restrictions when children are at home. Main findings between reviewed studies differ. Two studies came to conclusion that restrictive mediation strategy is related to less frequent purchase requests induced by TV advertising, one study concluded that active mediation strategy is related to both less frequent purchase requests and less parent-child conflict and one study did not find significant relationship between TV viewing restriction and purchase requests. However, in the study made by Robinson et al. (2001), that came to conclusion that restrictive mediation strategy is related to less frequent purchase requests, parental reports of childrens purchase requests in experimental and control group did not differ. Robertson et al. (1989) found that there is no relationship between parental restrictiveness and demanding nature of the child.
31
Thus far, only one study has investigated relation between mediation and parentchild conflict (Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005). The two studies that investigate correlation of active versus restrictive mediation on childrens behaviour arrived at opposite conclusions. Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) concluded that active mediation was the mediation style related to less childs purchase requests and less parent-child conflict, whereas Wiman (1983) found that restrictive mediation was the strategy related to less childs purchase requests. As conclusion, the research findings on how active and restrictive mediation relate to childs purchase requests are indecisive, and in the case of the parent-child conflict, there is only one study (Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005). There is a need to investigate and compare how the two styles of advertising mediation strategies relate to childrens purchase requests and parentchild conflict. Earlier research evidence was indecisive to enable formulation of specific hypotheses. investigated: RQ1: Is any of TV advertising mediation strategies, active or restrictive, strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests and parent-child conflict? 2.2.3 Parental mediation of childs product desire and purchase request induced by TV advertising 2.2.3.1. Literature review Few studies that are presented in this section focus on mothers mediation of childs product desire and purchase intent or request. It seems, according to the literature reviewed, that type of mothers purchase denial is related to the occurrence of the parentchild conflict. According to this assumption, mothers reasoning accompanied by explanation and interpretation of her orientation should correlate with less parent-child conflict. Experimental study made by Prasad, Rao and Sheikh (1978) about relationship of the persuasive power of mothers and television commercials involved 64 boys aged 8 to 10 The following research question was
32
years. Although the sample was small, and age and gender specific, this study was one of the first to suggest that parent can counteract, to some degree, the influence of childrens television commercials through the use of reasoning comments. The boys were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions: No Counter-Information (neutral), Power Assertive Counter-Information or Reasoning Counter-Information and exposed to the educational documentary that included commercials about one particular toy. One toy appeared in commercial that was more attractive than the commercial for the other toy, although toys themselves were equally attractive. One half of the children watched the documentary with the attractive commercial, other half the one with less attractive commercial. Each boy was alone and observed while watching TV in the room with one-way mirror. At the same time mothers were trained to offer negative counter-information about the TV advertised product to their child in either a reasoning manner or a power assertive manner. The researchers do not describe the difference between power assertive and reasoning except that previous research had shown that children showed a higher resistance to temptation when treated in a warm and reasoning manner as opposed to a power-assertive one. After viewing the documentary, boys played a game in order to win the coins to make purchase in simulated toy store, in which beside unadvertised toys were also advertised ones. The researchers noted that both types of counter-information increased the time it took each child to deliberate about purchasing the product. However, in all thee conditions, the boys chose the toy from attractive commercial over any unadvertised toy. In the case of less attractive commercial, accompanied by mothers comments using the reasoning condition, most of the boys chose unadvertised toy and complied with mothers advice. In the case when less attractive commercial was accompanied by mothers power-assertive comments, three-fourths of the boys went against their mothers advice. In the neutral condition the same percentage of children chose the advertised and the unadvertised toy. The researchers noted that appears that when a product in commercial is perceived as
33
being only moderately attractive, the type of maternal counter-information is a very relevant variable. A reasoning technique leads the children to comply with maternal advice, whereas the power assertive method elicits a negativistic response and induces the children to give even more weight to the commercial than in absence of any counterinfluence. These findings show that children show greater resistance to temptation when they are dealt with in a reasonable manner and considerably lower resistance when they are treated in a power-assertive fashion. However, it appears that when a product in question appears highly attractive in a commercial or when temptation level is very high, all forms of counter-influence fail. Experimental study made by Goldberg and Gorn (1978) showed that when children were told that their mother expressed the preference for the ball (and not for advertised toy), 79% of control group accepted her judgment and expressed that they liked the ball too. In the case of the experimental group that saw commercial, 54% of children followed their mother judgment and chose unadvertised toy that was preferred by their mother. The data from diary study made by Isler, Popper and Ward (1987) suggest that reasoning technique used by mothers lead the children to comply with maternal negative response on childs purchase requests. Author made conclusion that there were not many parent-child conflicts, but very important data that was not examined by the author is that among all denials made by mother to childs purchase requests, 42% was accompanied by explanation and 40% by response maybe sometimes. For TV advertising induced requests, mothers said no, and explained why in 31 % and maybe sometimes in 55% of cases. 2.2.3.2 Discussion and conclusions with propositions for the current study Presented literature review shows also in this case use of various research methods. Prasad, Rao and Sheikh (1978) and Goldberg and Gorn (1978) have made experimental studies; Isler, Popper and Ward (1987) made a diary study; while studies made by Carlson,
34
Grossbart, and Walsh (1990) and Buijzen and Valkenburg study (2005) employed survey. All studies except two (Prasad, Rao and Sheikh 1978; Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005) included kindergartners. In addition, Carlson, Grossbart, and Walsh (1990) and Isler, Popper and Ward (1987) studies were based only on mothers self-reports. These issues might interfere in validity of assumption that is based on results gathered from a literature review. As previously noted, the child must normally make a purchase request to his parents who yield or deny it. Parental response may be accompanied by positive instruction of the child about the marketplace or may result in conflict. Carlson, Grossbart, and Walsh (1990) study examined and concluded that Protective and Consensual mothers (socio-oriented) refuse with explanation their childrens requests more often than Laissez-faire and Pluralistic mothers. Unfortunately, these authors did not examine neither variable parentchild conflict neither relation between a parent-child conflict and type of mothers purchase denial. According to the Buijzen and Valkenburg study (2005) concept-oriented mothers (Pluralistic and Consensual) are characterized by less parent-child conflict than sociooriented mothers. In their study, Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) did not note the type of denial (with or without explanation) that parents use when deny childs purchase requests. The data concerning the type of denial would be of great significance, since from a review of research can be noticed that power-assertive and reasoning mediation have different effect on children consumer behavior. At this instance, it can be only speculated that most of the parents that are discussion oriented and that use active advertising mediation strategy are more apt to discussion and explanation also about the reasons for product denial which, in turn, results in less parent-child conflict. Two experimental studies, one made by Prasad, Rao and Sheikh (1978) and other by Goldberg and Gorn (1978) showed mothers success in advising her child in product selection, were first study showed mother success through reasoning and not power assertive manner.
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Reports of mothers refusals leading to conflict were rare in diary study made by Isler, Popper and Ward (1987). Unfortunately, researchers did not made correlation but, as may be seen from the data, mother either explained her denial (31%) or responded by stall (55%) to childs purchasing request induced by TV advertising. Stall means maybe sometimes but not now. It can be assumed that, since most of the requests were made at home and not at the store, that this type of mothers response gives to the children a hope of getting the product as soon as go shopping. Therefore, it seems important for this issue, type of denial, to be further examined because of its presumable relation with parent-child conflict. According to Buijzen and Valkenburg (2003a) studies investigating the relation between advertising exposure and parentchild conflict only implicitly assume that this relation is mediated by parental denial. However, none of these studies have actually operationalized and/or assessed product denial as a mediating variable (440). Since earlier research evidence is scarce and inconclusive to enable formulation of specific hypotheses, the following research questions were investigated: RQ2: Is there a difference between Pluralistic, Protective, Consensual and Laissez-faire parents in type of purchase denial they make (c) and, are some types of denials strongly related to occurrence of childs purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)?
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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY
3.1. OVERVIEW The methodological issues associated with current work are explained in detail within this chapter. A description of a developed research model and research methodology is provided. In a current work the research model was developed on the bases of past research efforts. Regarding the research methodology, the instruments used in current work to both test the hypothesis and to answer research questions were combined with instruments used in past research that has addressed similar issues. Use of previously validated scales provides a higher level of confidence in the reliability of the employed measures. Some modifications, however, were made in order to meet the needs of the current work. Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) utilized the similar approach of a self-report survey in order to discern parental mediation related to unintended TV advertising effects on children. Their study participants were parents and older children. In current study the only participant were the parents of preschool children, residents of municipality of Paradiso. In order to investigate parental mediation of childrens purchase requests induced by TV advertising and childrens reactions to parental request denial, Isler, Popper and Ward diary study (1987) measures were adopted. Adoption of these measures had as aim to grasp the information under long-term conditions about parental and TV advertising influence on childrens consumer behaviour. The measures were adjusted for the current study needs.
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3.2. THE RESEARCH MODEL The developed research model, based on the literature review, is presented in Figure 3.2.1.
Figure 3.2.1: The developed research model According to the literature review childrens TV advertising exposure results in frequent purchase requests to their parents. However, parents might use two strategies (active or restrictive) in order to mediate TV advertising exposure and effects. According to the same studies, it seems that patterns of parental communication affect the extent to which a parent makes use of restrictive or active mediation strategies. According to Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005, 162) active mediation and concept-oriented communication are conceptually related, as are restrictive and socio-oriented communication. According to these authors active mediation and concept-oriented communication are both focused on family discussions and increasing childrens understanding and autonomy, whereas restrictive mediation and socio-oriented communication are mainly focused on protecting children from advertising. According to Moschis (1985), discussing ads with children is consistent with concept-oriented mothers tendencies to foster consumer needs and behaviors geared to judging products based on their objective attributes.
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Based on the literature review, evidence was significant to enable formulation of specific hypothesis H1: Concept-oriented parents are apt to use active TV advertising mediation strategy, while socio-oriented parents are apt to use restrictive TV advertising mediation strategy. The aim of the first research question in this work was to examine if any parental mediation strategy relates to childs purchase requests. As mentioned in Section 2.2.2.2. in Chapter 2, the two studies that investigate correlation of active versus restrictive mediation on childrens behaviour arrived at opposite conclusions. Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) concluded that active mediation was the mediation style related to less childs purchase requests and less parent-child conflict, whereas Wiman (1983) found that restrictive mediation was the strategy related to less childs purchase requests. Since the research findings on how active and restrictive mediation relate to childs purchase requests are indecisive, and in the case of the parent-child conflict, there is only one study (Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005), there was a need to investigate and compare how the two styles of advertising mediation strategies relate to childrens purchase requests and parentchild conflict. Earlier research evidence was indecisive to enable formulation of specific hypotheses and the following research question was formulated RQ1: Is any of TV advertising mediation strategies, active or restrictive, strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)? The aim of the second research question in this work was to examine if differently communication-oriented parents use different types of denial of childs purchase requests and if any of types relates to both childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict. From the literature review can be noticed that power-assertive and reasoning mediation have different effect on children consumer behavior but, it can be only speculated that most of the parents that are discussion oriented and that use active advertising mediation strategy are more apt to discussion and explanation also about the reasons for product denial which, in turn, results in less parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising. According to Buijzen and Valkenburg (2003a, 440) studies investigating the relation between advertising exposure and parentchild conflict only implicitly assume that this
39
relation is mediated by parental denial. However, none of these studies have actually operationalized and/or assessed product denial as a mediating variable. Since earlier research evidence is scarce and inconclusive to enable formulation of specific hypotheses, the following research questions was formulated RQ2: Is there a difference between Pluralistic, Protective, Consensual and Laissez-faire parents in type of purchase denial they make (c) and, are some types of denials strongly related to occurrence of childs purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)? 3.3. METHODOLOGY This section is devoted to the methodology applied in order to test hypothesis H1 and to find the answers to proposed research questions. Specifically, it discusses sample and data collection procedure, measures, data analysis procedure and limitation of methodology used. Several methods of data collection could be and have been applied to the research of unintended effects of TV advertising on children and parental mediation of those effects, including experimental and non-experimental methods. However, non-experimental methods are used more often. Because of that, authors generally could not provide cause and effect conclusions but only conclusions about relationship among variables. However, some of them used causality terms (variable A has effect on variable B) when explaining relation among variables. In addition, researchers use term correlation when establishing relationship among qualitative variables although for qualitative variables term dependence would be more correct to use. However, throughout present work four terms correlation, relation, relationship and dependence are being used having the same meaning. Debate in this field frequently refers to the methodology used in research studies and ideal demonstration of effects. With correlation study, one can demonstrate the existence of an association between exposure and behaviour under naturalistic conditions, while with an experiment one can demonstrate the existence of a causal effect of exposure on behaviour under controlled conditions. In addition, according to Livingstone (2005, 280) naturalistic
40
or field experiments encounter two difficulties. First, it is more difficult than in laboratory experiments to eliminate extraneous or confounding factors, reducing certainty when drawing conclusions that the observed effects are due to variation in the independent measure (message exposure). Second, if one seeks to expose children over the longer term to hypothesised harmful exposure, one encounters serious ethical difficulties which make it unlikely that such an experiment would be permitted by human subjects or an ethics committees. In this work a non-experimental survey method was adopted in order to collect the data. It is the most widely used method in the literature about parental mediation of TV advertising effects. 3.3.1. Sample and data collection procedure As already mentioned, the reasons why this work focuses on parents and their preschool children are the following. The first reason is that especially for young children the two primary socialization sources are the family and the media (Solomon 2004). Second reason is that much of existing research on family communication structure focuses on adolescents, and one would expect the family influence to be even greater with younger children (Roedder 1999, 206). The target population is the group to which the researcher would like to generalize research results. A defined population should have at least one characteristic that differentiates it from other groups (http://coe.sdsu.edu/ed690/Class04/04.html). Target population in a current work were the parents of preschool children, residents of municipality of Paradiso.
The reason why the study discerned responses only from parents of preschool children that attend infancy school of municipality of Paradiso is that those parents were the population accessible to the researcher.
41
Paradiso is a multicultural municipality in the district of Lugano, in the canton of Ticino. Canton Ticino is the Italian-speaking canton, which is situated in southeastern part of Switzerland and which borders Italy. At 31.12.2005, the municipality of Paradiso had a population of 4,200 (from which 2267 or 54 % foreigners) and 69 children that attended the infancy school. Municipality has one infancy school that is attended by the children three, four and five years old and that are residents of municipality. Before the questionnaire was distributed, it was first translated in Italian and afterwards examined by infancy school staff regarding its appropriateness. Teachers gave to the children or directly to the parents a questionnaire accompanied by envelope to take it home. At the beginning of the questionnaire, there was a section asking the parent who spent the most time with the child to fill it in by having in mind the particular child that attends infancy school. Parents were asked to return the questionnaire within three consecutive days. The sample is a portion of the accessible population, which provide representational knowledge or skills held by the population at large. Parents that filled in the questionnaire in valid manner, are the sample of the study of this work and are described by following text. In all, 34 (52.3%) parents completed a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, yielding a final sample of 30 (49.2%) parents. 4 questionnaires were not valid. Although respondents come from various economic backgrounds majority of them come from low to middle economic settings. The parent sample consisted of 21 mothers, 7 fathers, and 2 parents who did not indicate their gender. The children that concerned parental responses were 19 boys (65.5%) and 10 girls (34.5%) aged 3, 4 and 5 years. For one child the gender was not indicated. After all the questionnaires were collected, the parents were informed about the nature and purpose of the study by the announcement.
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3.3.2. Measures The research questionnaire given to parents consisted of three sections. In the first section, subjects were asked to provide information about childs TV viewing, frequency of purchase requests, their answer on childs purchase request and childs reaction to purchase request denial. In the second section, which includes questions adopted from literature review, subjects had to report on items regarding their consumer-related communication patterns and TV advertising exposure mediation strategy they use. It is important to highlight that these two sections consider parental perceptions. In the third section of the questionnaire that focuses on respondents demographic profile, subjects were asked to provide additional data like age, gender, education and so on. The following text describes measures that compose the questionnaire. Amount of childs TV viewing Parents were asked to indicate how many hours per week their child watches TV. The level of the childs television viewing was expected to relate to both frequency of childs purchase requests and conflict induced by TV advertising. Frequency of childs purchase requests induced by TV advertising Parents were asked to indicate how often their child gets an idea from TV advertising to make purchase request. This question deals with following frequency possibilities: A few times a week, A few times a month, Every few months, Almost never and Never. The respondents that answered Never were directed to skip directly to the section regarding Advertising Mediation and Consumer Communication. The frequency of childs product requests to parents was expected to relate to the occurrence of parent-child conflict. The issue that was explored is how active and
43
restrictive TV advertising exposure mediation strategy relates to both frequency of childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict. Parental response and type of denial There are two questions that examine parental response. First question examines both parental yielding and denial. Second question examines a type of denial. The following question explores type of denial: When you deny childs purchase request, your answer in general is: a) Maybe sometimes b) No immediately, without explanation c) No with explanation that you are not in the situation to buy and tell the reason d) No with explanation, since this one is good opportunity to teach your child about advertising and consumption in general e) Before saying No you discus with your child with intention to somehow discourage childs desire for the product f) Other (please specify) According to the literature review concept-oriented parents are more apt to yield childs purchase requests. However, the issue that was explored is whether some parents use specific types of denial and if some types relate to occurrence of childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict. Parent-child conflict To measure parentchild conflict about purchase requests, parents were asked to indicate childs reaction to purchase request denial by following question: Please, indicate the usual childs reaction to your denial a) Takes it OK b) Becomes disappointed c) Argues a little, then let it drop d) Argues a lot, keeps nagging e) Gets really angry
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Five items were adopted from Isler, Popper and Ward diary study (1987, 36) and adjusted for current work needs. In current work was explored if this variable relates to parental type of denial and parental TV advertising exposure mediation strategy. Advertising Mediation and Consumer Communication To determine advertising mediation, a television mediation scale developed by Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) was used. The items representing an active mediation style and a restrictive mediation style reflect communication strategies directly relevant to television advertising. To measure consumer communication patterns, the original Family Communications Patterns scale developed by Chaffee et al. (1971, adopted from Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005) was used. The items on this scale measured consumer-related communication patterns. The final list of items measuring parental mediation and consumer communication consisted of 18 items, 10 for advertising mediation and 8 for consumer communication. The items represent four factors (a) active advertising mediation, (b) restrictive advertising mediation, (c) concept-oriented consumer communication, and (d) socio-oriented consumer communication (Table 3.3.1.2). All items deal with the frequency (often, sometimes, rarely, or never) of the mediation strategies and consumer communication patterns used by parents. In this work the relation between parental communication patterns and TV advertising exposure mediation strategies was investigated. In addition, it was explored if there is a relation between parental communication patterns and type of denial parents make as an answer to the childs purchase requests.
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Table 3.3.1.2. TV advertising mediation and parental consumer communication (Buijzen and Valkenburg 2005, 158) How often do you tell your child Active mediation strategy 1. That advertising depicts products as better than they really are? 2. That advertising does not always tell the truth? 3. That the purpose of advertising is to sell products? 4. That not all advertised products are of good quality? 5. That some advertised products are not good for children? Restrictive mediation strategy 1. To turn off the television when (s)he is watching commercials? 2. That (s)he should not watch commercial networks because they broadcast too many commercials? 3. To switch to a channel that broadcasts fewer commercials? 4. That (s)he should not watch television advertising at all? 5. To watch specific networks that broadcast relatively few commercials? Concept-oriented consumer communication 1. To give his/her opinion when discussing family purchases? 2. To give his/her opinion about products? 3. To consider the advantages and disadvantages of products and brands? 4. That (s)he can codecide when you make purchases for him/her? Socio-oriented consumer communication 1. That you know which products are best for him/her? 2. Not to argue with you when you say no to their product requests? 3. Which products (s)he should or should not buy? 4. That (s)he is not allowed to ask for products?
Demographics Parents were asked to indicate childs age, gender, his/her order among brothers/sisters and how many brothers/sisters child has. Parents data asked were age, gender, education, working status, family income and nationality.
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These variables were important in order to collect sample description and to further explore eventual relations of these variables to parental communication patterns, TV advertising exposure mediation strategy and type of parental denial of childs purchase requests.
3.3.3. Data analysis procedure
When analyzing survey data, a common procedure is to use a contingency table. A contingency table presents the cross-tabulation between two variables. A cross-tabulation refers to the pattern of joint occurrences for the two variables. By examining a contingency table, it is possible to determine whether or not two variables are related. In order to compute measures of dependence for qualitative-quantitative variables Chisquared index (ranges from 0 to infinity) was computed. Because of its range Chi-squared indexs value is not easy interpretable. As consequence, other dependency measures were computed and presented in present work. Those dependency measures are phi (from 0 to infinity), Contingency (from 0 to 1 but never exactly equal 1) and Cramers V (from 0 to 1). Dependency measure, frequently used when describing strength of relationship between two variables is Cramers V. According to Giventer, if Cramers V value is: below 0.2 the relationship is weak; 0.2-0.5 the relationship is moderate; above 0.5 the relationship is strong. (http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~ldeleon/Survey_Data.htm, 25th September 2006).
However, a high value for these dependency measures does not mean that necessarily in the population the two variables are related. In order to present sample profile, for all demographic variables central tendency (mode) was computed. A central tendency was also computed for other variables like parental communication patterns, TV advertising exposure mediation strategy, childrens purchase requests, parental response, type of parental denial and childs reaction to purchase denial.
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Tables and graphs are used in order to present results. All computations were made by SPSS 12.0 for Windows. 3.3.4. Discussion about limitations of methodology used The method used in a current study included parents of preschool children from an Infancy school in Paradiso, Switzerland. The school was not randomly selected for this research study. The instrument used was a parent self-report survey designed to collect information about parental mediation of TV advertising and its unintended effects on children. The limitation of the study is that it was a purposive self-selection sample and only a limited number of subjects were surveyed. In addition, there have been registered, in the research that used survey methodology, drawbacks like report bias, memory error and word-action discrepancy. The recommendations for a future research are to use a random sample and both a larger sample size from a target population and parent-child dyads since childrens responses could enable exploration of possibly more objective parent-child dynamics regarding TV advertising. This work is based only on parent self-reports, which may result in parental exaggerated reports of conscientious behaviour as good parent (Desmond et al. 1985).
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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 4.1. SAMPLE PROFILE A total sample consisted of 30 parents, from which 21 were mothers (mode), 7 were fathers, and 2 parents did not indicate their gender. The children that concerned parental responses were 19 boys (mode, 65.5%) and 10 girls (34.5%) aged 3, 4 and 5 years. For one child the gender was not indicated. The basic data related to sample profile is presented in Tables 4.1.1 4.1.3, and Figures 4.1.1 4.1.2. Table 4.1.1: Respondents (parents) and childs demographics reported
parent's gender N Mode Valid Missing 28 2 2.00 child's gender 29 1 1.00 parent's age 30 0 2.00 child's age 30 0 5.00
Table 4.1.2: Respondents (parents) gender

Count male female 7 21 % 25.0% 75.0%
Table 4.1.3: Childs gender

male female Count 19 10 % 65.5% 34.5%
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Parents gender
Male Female
25.0% 25
75 75.0%
Figure 4.1.1: Respondents (parents) gender
Childs gender
Male Female
34 34.5%
66 65.5%
Figure 4.1.2: Childs gender
All the age categories were present in the sample. The mode category is 30-34 years and most of respondents were younger than 40 years. Most of the children (mode) that were the subject of parents responses were five years old, while the smallest category consisted of three years old children. The data concerning the respondents and childs age are presented in Tables 4.1.4 4.1.5.
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Table 4.1.4: Respondents (parents) age

Count less than 30 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 6 8 7 5 4 % 20.0% 26.7% 23.3% 16.7% 13.3%
Table 4.1.5: Childs age

Count 3.00 4.00 5.00 2 11 17 % 6.7% 36.7% 56.7%
The category distribution of the respondents and childs age is presented in Figures 4.1.3 4.1.4 respectively.
30
25
20
Percent
15
10
0 less than 30 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49
Parent's age
Figure 4.1.3: Respondents (parents) age

60
50
40
Percent
30
20
10
0 3.00 4.00 5.00
Child's age
Figure 4.1.4: Childs age
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The majority of children (mode) are the first-born (17 children) and 21 are either the only child in the family or have only one brother or sister. The families that have three or four children were nine. The cross-tabulation of childs birth order and number of brothers or sisters is given in Table 4.1.6. The respondents come from various economic backgrounds, but majority of them have low to middle family income (mode is category less than 4699 CHF with 34.5%). Regarding the education, most of respondents (63%) have degree of grammar or some professional school while only 6.7% have only elementary school. The mode category for education is professional school containing 33.3% of parents. The respondents family income and educational level are presented in Tables 4.1.7 4.1.8, and their distributions are graphically represented in Figures 4.1.5 4.1.6. Table 4.1.6: The cross-tabulation of childs birth order and number of brothers or sisters
Brothers/sisters 1 2 7 0 23.3% .0% 4 2 13.3% 6.7% 0 4 .0% 13.3% 0 0 .0% .0% 11 6 36.7% 20.0%
0 Child order 1 2 3 4 Total Count % of Total Count % of Total Count % of Total Count % of Total Count % of Total 10 33.3% 0 .0% 0 .0% 0 .0% 10 33.3%
3 0 .0% 0 .0% 1 3.3% 2 6.7% 3 10.0%
Total 17 56.7% 6 20.0% 5 16.7% 2 6.7% 30 100.0%
Table 4.1.7: Respondents family income

less than 4699 4700-6799 6800-8999 9000-11999 more than 12000 Count 10 8 8 2 1 % 34.5% 27.6% 27.6% 6.9% 3.4%
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Table 4.1.8: Respondents education

Count elementary school high school grammar school professional school university 2 4 9 10 5 % 6.7% 13.3% 30.0% 33.3% 16.7%
40
30
Percent
20
10
0 less than 4699 4700-6799 6800-8999 9000-11999 more than 12000
Family income
Figure 4.1.5: Family income distribution
40
30
Percent
20
10
0 elementary school high school grammar school professional school university
Education
Figure 4.1.6: Respondents education
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Approximately 2/3 of respondents are working and 41% (mode) work full-time. The respondents working status is presented in Table 4.1.9 and Figure 4.1.7. Table 4.1.9: Respondents working status
full-time part-time not working other Count 12 5 10 2 % 41.4% 17.2% 34.5% 6.9%
work_status work_status full-time part-time full-time not working
6.9%
other part-time
not working other
34.5%
41.4%
17.2%
Figure 4.1.7: Respondents working status Regarding the respondents origin, the sample, although small, can be recognized as representative for the population of Paradiso that is, as already mentioned, multicultural municipality. According to data, sample consisted of 57,6% of foreigners and 42,3% (mode) of Swiss nationals. Four respondents did not indicate their origin. The respondents origin is presented in Table 4.1.10 and Figure 4.1.8. Table 4.1.10: Respondents origin
Count W. Europe E. Europe Far East South Asia Swiss 5 8 1 1 11 % 19.2% 30.8% 3.8% 3.8% 42.3%
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origin W. Europe W. Europe Far East

South Asia E. Europe swiss E. Europe
origin
Far East
19.2% 42.3% 30.8% 3.8% 3.8%
South Asia swiss
Figure 4.1.8: Respondents origin In accordance with earlier studies, the study presented in current work also resulted that the mothers are more frequently primary care givers (it was asked in the questionnaire that the parent that spends most of the time with the child fill in the questionnaire) as presented in Table 4.1.2. In addition, considerable number of mothers does not work outside the home, which makes conceivable that they also spend more time with the children. The cross-tabulation of parent's gender and working status is presented in Table 4.1.11. Table 4.1.11: The cross-tabulation of parent's gender and working status is presented in
Cou t full-time 7 3 10 Work status part-time not working 0 0 5 10 5 10 other 0 2 2 Total 7 20 27
Parent gender Total
male female
4.2 RESPONDENTS
DATA REGARDING PARENTAL COMMUNICATION PATTERNS AND
TV
ADVERTISING EXPOSURE MEDIATION STRATEGY
The parental communication patterns and parental mediation strategy of childs TV advertising exposure (in further text referred to as mediation strategy) are determined from
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questionnaire, questions 6 to 23. As defined in Chapter 2, Pluralistic parents are conceptoriented only, Protective parents are socio-oriented only, Laissez-faire parents are neither concept-oriented nor socio-oriented, and Consensual parents are both concept-oriented and socio-oriented. The obtained results are presented in Tables 4.2.1 4.2.2 and Figures 4.2.1 4.2.2. Table 4.2.1: Parental communication patterns
Count pluralistics protectives consensuals laissez-faires 2 7 13 8 % 6.7% 23.3% 43.3% 26.7%
Communication Communication patterns patterns laissez-faires protectives protectives pluralistics consensuals pluralistics
consensuals laissez-faires
Figure 4.2.1: Graphical representation of parental communication patterns Results presented in Table 4.2.1 and Figure 4.2.1 show that 13 respondents are Consensual (mode) and seven respondents are Protective. Only two parents are Pluralistic and eight of them are Laissez-faire. Thus, the sample consisted mostly (66.7%) of socio-oriented respondents (Consensual and Protective). According to the data presented in Table 4.2.2 and Figure 4.2.2, parents in the sample are apt to use rather active than restrictive mediation. The parents that use only the active mediation are 43.3% (mode). If some parents use restrictive mediation strategy of TV advertising exposure this is rather in the combination with active mediation. Nearly 27%
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respondents indicated the lack of use of both mediation strategies. The presented results serve as a basis for examination of Hypothesis H1. Table 4.2.2: Parental mediation strategy
active restrictive combination of active and restrictive lack of active and restrictive Count 13 1 8 8 % 43.3% 3.3% 26.7% 26.7%
Mediation strategy
Mediation strategy active
active
combination of active and restrictive restrictive restrictive
combination of active and lack of active and restrictive restrictive lack of active and restrictive
Figure 4.2.2: Graphical representation of parental mediation strategy
4.3 CHILDRENS TV VIEWING AND PURCHASE REQUESTS Data collected in the study using the questionnaire shows that children that are subjects of parents responses, watch TV in average of 7,9 hours per week (mean value), but most of them (60%) make never or almost never (modes) purchase requests induced by TV advertising to their parents. The data concerning childs TV viewing hours per week and childs purchase requests is presented in Tables 4.3.1 4.3.2 and in Figure 4.3.1.
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Table 4.3.1: Childs TV viewing hours per week

Count 2.00 2.50 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 10.00 11.00 15.00 16.00 20.00 1 1 5 1 2 2 1 2 8 2 1 1 1 % 3.6% 3.6% 17.9% 3.6% 7.1% 7.1% 3.6% 7.1% 28.6% 7.1% 3.6% 3.6% 3.6%
Table 4.3.2: Childs purchase requests

Count a few times a week a few times a month every few months almost never never 4 5 3 9 9 % 13.3% 16.7% 10.0% 30.0% 30.0%
Purchase request
Purchase request
a few times a a few times a week week

a few times a a few times a month month
every few months almost never almost never never

13
every few months
never
30
17
10 30
Figure 4.3.1: Childs purchase requests
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4.4 PARENTAL
RESPONSE TO PURCHASE REQUESTS, TYPE OF PARENTAL DENIAL OF
CHILDS PURCHASE REQUESTS AND CHILDS USUAL REACTION TO DENIAL
The data collected using the questionnaire concerning parental response to purchase requests and type of parental denial are presented in Tables 4.4.1 4.4.2. Table 4.4.1: Parental response to purchase requests
Count yes no 7 13 % 35.0% 65.0%
Table 4.4.2: Type of parental denial

Count maybe explanation of reason explanation and teaching intention to discourage 2 8 7 3 % 10.0% 40.0% 35.0% 15.0%
According to the data, respondents in the sample more frequently do not yield (mode, 65%) to their childs purchase requests and when deny purchase request, 75% of them deny either with explanation that they are not in the situation to buy and tell the reason (mode, 40%) or using that one as good opportunity to teach their child about advertising and consumption in general. It is interesting to note that no parent did indicate to use denial without an explanation. The data concerning childs usual reaction to denial is presented in Table 4.4.3 and Figure 4.4.1. According to the data, most of the children argue a little with their parents after purchase denial (mode, 70%). This finding is in accordance with literature review that says that the conflicts are seldom intense and persistent (Atkin 1975c, for a review, see Isler, Popper and Ward 1987). Table 4.4.3: Childs usual reaction to parental denial
Count takes it ok argues a little argues a lot 5 14 1 % 25.0% 70.0% 5.0%
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Child'sChild's reaction reaction

takes it ok
takes it oka little argues

argues a lot argues a little
argues a lot
5 5% 25 25%
70 70%
Figure 4.4.1: Childs usual reaction to parental denial The established Research Questions RQ2a, RQ2b and RQ2c concern type of parental denial of childs purchase requests (see Figure 3.2.1). Before examination of established research questions, it is important first to explore the relationship between childrens TV exposure and both childrens purchase requests and childs reaction to parental purchase denial. Dependence measures between childrens TV exposure and their purchase requests are presented in Table 4.4.4. Table 4.4.4: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between childrens TV exposure and their purchase requests
Nominal by Nominal N of Valid Cases
Phi Cramer's V Contingency Coefficient
Value 1.296 .648 .792 28
Approx. Sig. .514 .514 .514
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis. b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.
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From the measures of dependence (Table 4.4.4) it can be concluded that dependence between childrens TV exposure and their purchase requests is strong. Dependence measures between childrens TV exposure and the childrens reaction to purchase denial are presented in Table 4.4.5. Table 4.4.5: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between childrens TV exposure and childrens reaction to purchase denial
Value 1.146 .811 .754 20 Approx. Sig. .050 .050 .050
From the measures of dependence (Table 4.4.5) it can be concluded that dependence between childrens TV exposure and childrens reaction to purchase denial is strong, as in previous case. Finally, dependence measures between childrens purchase requests and childrens reaction on purchase denial are presented in Table 4.4.6. From the measures of dependence it can be concluded that dependence between childrens purchase requests and childrens reaction on purchase denial is rather moderate, i.e. lower than in the previous two cases. Table 4.4.6: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between childrens purchase requests and childrens reaction on purchase denial
Value .499 .353 .446 21
Approx. Sig. .515 .515 .515
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From the data presented in Tables 4.4.4 4.4.6 it can be concluded that there is a strong dependence between TV exposure and both frequency of childs purchase requests and their reactions to purchase denial, but there is only moderate dependence between childs purchase requests and childs reaction to denial, which suggests that some other factors influence the dependence between childs purchase requests and childs reaction to denial. These factors have been identified from literature review in previous chapters of this work as the type of parental denial and parents mediation strategy. Dependence measures between parents mediation strategy and childs purchase requests are presented in Table 4.4.7, and dependence measures between parents mediation strategy and childs reaction to denial in Table 4.4.8. Table 4.4.7: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between parents mediation strategy and childs purchase requests
Value .618 .357 .526 30
Approx. Sig. .490 .490 .490
Table 4.4.8: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between parents mediation strategy and childs reaction to denial
Value .658 .465 .550 21
Approx. Sig. .059 .059 .059
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From the measures of dependence (Tables 4.4.7 and 4.4.8) it can be concluded that dependence between parents mediation strategy and childs purchase requests is moderate while dependence between parents mediation strategy and childs reaction to denial is rather moderate to strong. Dependence measures between type of parents denial and childs purchase requests presented in Table 4.4.9, and dependence measures between type of parents denial and childs reaction to denial in Table 4.4.10. Table 4.4.9: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between type of parents denial and childs purchase requests
Value .638 .368 .538 21 Approx. Sig. .481 .481 .481
Table 4.4.10: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between type of parents denial and childs reaction to denial
Value .458 .324 .416 21 Approx. Sig. .623 .623 .623
From the measures of dependence (Tables 4.4.9 and 4.4.10) it can be concluded that dependence between type of parents denial and childs purchase requests and, dependence between type of parents denial and childs reaction to denial are both moderate. The dependences between the TV exposure, frequency of the childs purchase request, childs reaction to denial, type of parents denial and parents mediation strategy are
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schematically presented in Figure 4.4.2. The examined Research Questions are indicated in the same figure.
RQ2a Childs purchase request
Type of parents denial RQ1a RQ2b Parents mediation strategy RQ1b
Childs reaction to denial TV exposure
Strong dependence Moderate to strong dependence Moderate dependence
Figure 4.4.2: The dependence between the TV exposure, frequency of the childs purchase request, childs reaction to denial, type of parents denial and parents mediation Since the dependence between the childs purchase request and the TV exposure is strong and the dependence between the TV exposure and the childs reaction to denial is also strong, it is expected to have strong dependence between childs purchase request and childs reaction to denial if there is no influence of type of parents denial or parents mediation strategy. However, that dependence is only moderate since both (childs purchase request and childs reaction to denial) are in moderate to moderate-to-strong dependence with parents denial type and parents mediation strategy. Thus, there is an influence of parents type of denial and parents mediation strategy to dependence between childs purchase request and childs reaction to denial. The mode of the childs reaction to denial is argue a little while the modes of the child purchase request are almost never and never (see Figures 4.4.1 and 4.3.1). Consequently, the relationship of type of parents denial and childs reaction is twofold: (1) It relates to increased number of low intensity conflicts (most of children have very low purchase requests but argue a little)
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(2) It relates to decreased number of high intensity conflicts (although 40% of children have purchase requests and among them 30% have frequent purchase requests more than few times a month, the more conflicting categories are extremely rare argues a lot or lacking -gets really angry). These consequences, combined with results of statistical analysis presented in this section and summarized in Figure 4.4.2 represent in fact the overview on answers on Research Questions RQ1a, RQ1b, RQ2a and RQ2b. 4.5 EXAMINATION OF HYPOTHESIS H1 The Hypothesis H1 states: Concept-oriented parents (Pluralistic and Consensual) are apt to use active TV advertising mediation strategy, while socio-oriented parents (Protective and Consensual) are apt to use restrictive TV advertising mediation strategy. In order to explore dependence between communication patterns and mediation strategy, which is important for verification or denial of Hypothesis H1, a cross-tabulation was processed. The cross-tabulation is presented in Table 4.5.1. Table 4.5.1: Cross-tabulation of communication patterns and mediation strategy
Mediation strategy combination of active and restrictive restrictive 0 0 .0% .0% 1 14.3% 3.3% 0 .0% .0% 0 .0% .0% 1 3.3% 3.3% .0% .0% 1 14.3% 3.3% 6 46.2% 20.0% 1 12.5% 3.3% 8 26.7% 26.7% lack of active and restrictive 1 50.0% 3.3% 0 .0% .0% 1 7.7% 3.3% 6 75.0% 20.0% 8 26.7% 26.7%
active Communication pattern pluralistics Count % within communication_pattern % of Total Count % within communication_pattern % of Total Count % within communication_pattern % of Total Count % within communication_pattern % of Total Count % within communication_pattern % of Total 1 50.0% 3.3% 5 71.4% 16.7% 6 46.2% 20.0% 1 12.5% 3.3% 13 43.3% 43.3%
Total 2 100.0% 6.7% 7 100.0% 23.3% 13 100.0% 43.3% 8 100.0% 26.7% 30 100.0% 100.0%
protectives
consensuals
laissez-faires
Total
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The results of cross-tabulation are very clear. Four important crossing points (dependencies) are identified and highlighted in Table 4.5.1. Protective and Consensual parents (socio-oriented) use mostly active mediation. In addition, Consensual parents are apt to use combination of active and restrictive mediation. Pluralistic parents were only two in the sample and their use of mediation strategy can not be established due to small presence in the sample. Finally, Laissez-faire parents lack the use of both mediation strategies. Above qualitative analysis demonstrates that socio-oriented parents are rather apt to use active than restrictive mediation strategy. This result is in disagreement with Hypothesis H1. More deep quantitative (statistical) analysis confirms this statement. Cross-tabulation of socio-oriented parents and mediation strategy, presented in Table 4.5.2 shows that majority of the socio-oriented parents use only active (55%) or combination of both active and restrictive strategy (35%) i.e. total of 90% of socio-oriented parents use active mediation strategy (alone or in combination with restrictive). Table 4.5.2: Cross-tabulation of socio-oriented parents and mediation strategy
Mediation strategy combination of active and restrictive restrictive 1 7 5.0% 35.0%
Socio oriented
Count % within socio oriented
active 11 55.0%
lack of active and restrictive 1 5.0%
Total 20 100.0%
Further was examined if that dependence was strong. The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients were calculated and presented in Table 4.5.3. Relatively high values of coefficients confirm strong dependence between socio-oriented parents (Protective and Consensual) and active mediation strategy (alone or in combination with restrictive).
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Table 4.5.3: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between socio-oriented parents and active mediation strategy
Value .617 .617 .525 30
Approx. Sig. .001 .001 .001
Dependence measures between socio-oriented (Consensual and Protective) and restrictive mediation (alone or in combination with active) are presented in Table 4.5.4. Table 4.5.4: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between socio-oriented parents and restrictive mediation strategy
Value .309 .309 .295 30
Approx. Sig. .091 .091 .091
From the measures of dependence (Table 4.5.4) it can be concluded that dependence between socio-oriented parents and restrictive mediation exists, but it is rather moderate. The cross-tabulation of concept-oriented parents and mediation strategy, presented in Table 4.5.5, show that most of the concept-oriented parents in the sample use only active (46,7%) or combination of both active and restrictive strategy (40%). However it is important to highlight that nearly all of the concept-oriented parents belong to Consensual category. The weak Pluralistic category actually influence a lot the dependence measures between concept oriented parents (Pluralistic and Consensual) and active mediation strategy (alone or in combination with restrictive) as shown in Table 4.5.6.
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Table 4.5.5: Cross-tabulation of concept-oriented parents and mediation strategy

Mediation strategy combination of active and restrictive restrictive 0 6 .0% 40.0%
active Concept oriented Count % within concept_ oriented 7 46.7%
lack of active and restrictive 2 13.3%
Total 15 100.0%
From the measures of dependence (Table 4.5.6) it can be concluded that dependence between concept-oriented parents and active mediation exists, but it is rather moderate. Table 4.5.6: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between concept-oriented parents and active mediation strategy
Value .364 .364 .342 30 Approx. Sig. .046 .046 .046
Dependence measures between concept-oriented (Consensual and Pluralistic) and restrictive mediation (alone or in combination with active) are presented in Table 4.5.7. Table 4.5.7: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between concept-oriented parents and restrictive mediation strategy
Value .218 .218 .213 30 Approx. Sig. .232 .232 .232
From the measures of dependence (Table 4.5.7) it can be concluded that dependence between concept-oriented parents and restrictive mediation is weak to moderate.
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The conclusions carried out from analysis presented in this section are the following: (1) The dependencies between socio-oriented parents and restrictive mediation in one hand, and concept-oriented parents and active mediation in the other, are rather moderate for the sample explored (2) Strong dependence between socio-oriented parents (Consensual and Protective) and active mediation (alone or in combination with restrictive) is noticed, i.e. parents in the sample, although socio-oriented, use active or combination of active and restrictive mediation strategy, but lack to use only restrictive mediation, which does not confirm the Hypothesis H1 The above statistical analysis and its relation with Hypothesis H1 are schematically summarized in the diagram shown in Figure 4.5.1.
Concept-oriented parents
Socio-oriented parents
Strong dependence
H1 Active mediation
H1 Restrictive mediation
Moderate dependence Weak to moderate dependence
Figure 4.5.1: Schematically representation of statistical analysis and its relation with Hypothesis H1 Although it was not the aim of the study to examine the dependence between Laissez-faire parents and lack of any mediation strategy, active or restrictive, the fact that high number of counts, when considering total sample, is found in cross-tabulation of these two categories (see Table 4.5.1), attracts attention. The dependence measures were calculated and presented in Table 4.5.8.
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Table 4.5.8: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between Laissez-faire parents and lack of mediation strategy
Value .659 .659 .550 30
Approx. Sig. .000 .000 .000
As an additional result to above conclusions, strong dependence between Laissez-faire parents in the sample and lack of both mediation strategies is found (Table 4.5.8), which is in accordance with concept of Laissez-faire communication pattern. 4.6 EXAMINATION OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS RQ1 AND RQ2 The first following research questions have been formulated (see Figure 3.2.1): RQ1: Is any of TV advertising exposure mediation strategies, active or restrictive, strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)? The Research Questions 1 is examined in the further text through dependencies between the parents mediation strategy on one side and childs purchase requests and childs reaction to denial on the other side. In addition the relation of the former to the last two factors is discussed. Cross-tabulation of mediation strategies and childs purchase requests is presented in Table 4.6.1. The data in Table 4.6.1 demonstrates that the number of more frequent purchase requests (at least every few months) is approximately the same as the number of purchase requests that are extremely rare or lacking (almost never and never) lack of both active and restrictive strategy was not considered in this statement.
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Table 4.6.1: Cross-tabulation of mediation strategies and childs purchase requests

Purchase request a few times every few almost never a month months 3 2 5 0 0 0 1 1 5 1 0 3 2 2 9
Mediation strategy
active restrictive combination of active and restrictive lack of active and restrictive
a few times a week 2 0 2 0 4
never 1 1 2 5 9
Total 13 1 8 8 30
Total
Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) found relationship between active mediation and less purchase requests, while Wiman (1983) found relationship between active mediation and more purchase requests. According to the data gathered from parents in the study made in current work, the dependence of occurrence or lack of purchase requests and active mediation is considered as weak to moderate as demonstrated in Table 4.6.2. Table 4.6.2: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between active mediation strategy and childs purchase request
Value .247 .247 .240 30
Approx. Sig. .176 .176 .176
For restrictive mediation there is no enough data to compute dependence with frequency of purchase requests, but if the combination of active and restrictive mediation is analysed, the same conclusion as in case of active mediation can be carried out. Cross-tabulation of mediation strategies and childs reaction to parents denial is presented in Table 4.6.3.
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Table 4.6.3: Cross-tabulation of mediation strategies and childs reaction to parents denial
takes it ok 1 4 0 5 Child' s reaction argues a little argues a lot 10 1 2 3 15 0 0 1 Total 12 6 3 21
Mediation strategy
active combination of active and restrictive lack of active and restrictive
Total
The data in Table 4.6.3 demonstrates that the childs reaction to denial of purchase in most of the cases is argues a little. The dependence of active non-restrictive mediation with childs arguing reaction (argues a little or argues a lot) exists but it is considered as moderate to strong as presented in Table 4.6.4. This is contrary to the results of the research of Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) that found the dependence between active mediation and less conflict. Table 4.6.4: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between active mediation strategy and childs reaction to denial
Value .435 .435 .399 20 Approx. Sig. .151 .151 .151
For restrictive mediation there is no enough data to compute dependence with childs reaction to parents denial since only one parent in the sample was only restrictive and reported that his/her child never asked for TV advertised products. Based on the data analysed it can be concluded that, in the sample examined, active mediation is most present. It is used by socio-oriented parents and is in relation with childs negative reaction to purchase denial. This is in accordance with Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) research results that socio-orientation is in relation with more parentchild conflict. The main difference between Buijzen and Valkenburg (2005) and the
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current study is that this relation is mediated by restrictive mediation strategy in first research and by active mediation strategy in the latter one. RQ2: Is there a difference between Pluralistic, Protective, Consensual and Laissezfaire parents in type of purchase denial they make (c) and are some types of denials strongly related to occurrence of childs purchase requests (a) and parent-child conflict (b)? The Research Question 2c is examined in the text through dependencies between the parental communication patterns and type of parental denial. The cross-tabulation between these two variables is presented in Table 4.6.5. Table 4.6.5: Cross-tabulation between the parental communication patterns and type of parental denial
Parental denial explanation explanation and reason and teaching 0 1 3 3 3 2 2 1 8 7
maybe Communication pattern pluralistics protectives consensuals laissez-faires 0 0 2 0 2
Total
intention to discourage 0 0 2 1 3
Total 1 6 9 4 20
The data in the Table 4.6.5 shows that Protective parents are apt to deny purchase requests accompanied by explanation, while Consensual parents use all types of denials. Dependence between parental communication patterns and type of parental denial is moderate, as demonstrated in Table 4.6.6. Table 4.6.6: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between the parental communication patterns and type of parental denial
Value .602 .348 .516 21
Approx. Sig. .574 .574 .574
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According to Carlson, Grossbart and Walsh 1990) socio-oriented (Protective and Consensual) mothers deny purchase requests with explanation more often than Pluralistic and Laissez-faire mothers. The Research Questions 2a and 2b are examined in the further text through dependencies between the type of parental denial on one side and childs purchase requests and childs reaction to denial on the other side. Cross-tabulation of type of parents denial and childs purchase requests is presented in Table 4.6.7. Table 4.6.7: Cross-tabulation of type of parents denial and childs purchase requests
Count Parental denial explanation explanation and reason and teaching 1 2 1 1 2 0 4 4 8 7 intention to discourage 0 1 1 1 3
maybe Purchase request a few times a week a few times a month every few months almost never 1 1 0 0 2
Total 4 4 3 9 20
Total
According to the cross-tabulation presented in Table 4.6.7 children almost never ask for TV advertised products when parents use denial accompanied by explanation. Nevertheless, this dependence is weak to moderate, as demonstrated in Table 4.6.8. Table 4.6.8: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between parents denial with explanation and childs purchase requests.
Value .290 .290 .279 20 Approx. Sig. .194 .194 .194
Cross-tabulation of type of parents denial and childs reaction to denial is presented in Table 4.6.9.
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Table 4.6.9: Cross-tabulation of type of parents denial and childs reaction to denial
Count Parental denial explanation explanation and reason and teaching 2 2 6 4 0 1 8 7 intention to discourage 0 3 0 3
maybe Child's reaction Total takes it ok argues a little argues a lot 1 1 0 2
Total 5 14 1 20
The data in the Table 4.6.9 show a number of counts in cross-tabulation between child argues a little and parental denial with explanation. In addition, there is relation between child argues a little and parents use of discussion with intention to discourage childs desire. For this sample, it can be concluded that parental denial accompanied by discussion (explanations and intention to discourage) is related with child negative reaction (arguing, but not persistent one) but this relation is very weak as presented in Table 4.6.10. Table 4.6.10: The Phi, Cramers and Contingency coefficients for dependence between parents denial with explanation and childs reaction to denial
Value .167 .167 .164 21
Approx. Sig. .445 .445 .445
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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK
5.1 CONCLUSIONS Consumer socialization theory emphasizes that children gain consumption-related skills, knowledge, and attitudes through the interaction with socialization agents in various social settings. Especially for young children, the two primary socialization agents are the family and the media (Solomon 2004). Children learn from their parents from childhood on, which make parents the one of the most important socialization agents. A child may make a conscious effort to imitate the behaviour of his/her parents because the parents behaviour is the most salient alternative open to him/her. On the other hand, when children are rewarded for engaging in certain behaviour, they might retain the behaviour to expect further reward or when children are punished for certain behaviour, they might stop that behaviour to avoid future punishment. The reciprocal influence between source and learner is the focus of the social interaction. During the social interaction, children do not simply act they react. Social interaction and communication between children and parents continuously modify childrens personality and self-concept development and, as research suggests, increases parents influence on childrens consumption behaviours (Moschis 1985). Although the family plays an important role in consumer socialization of the young children, it seems that parental influence is often incidental and that it proceeds through subtle interpersonal processes rather than via direct, purposive consumer training (parentchild discussions about consumption are most likely to be initiated as a result of the childs request for a product that he/she sees advertised). This fact seems very important, since some researchers underline that parents may influence childrens orientations only to the extent that children accurately perceive and reinterpret them. In addition, The literature suggests that parents may not sufficiently recognize the importance of their indirect methods of influence, frequently serving as poor role models or cultivating
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communication patterns within the family that do not help children develop effective decision-making skills (Fujioka and Austin 2002, 643). The child must normally request a product from parents, who then yield to the request or deny it. This mediation of childrens requests presents parents with an opportunity both for positive instruction of the child about the marketplace, and for conflict and resentment. Therefore, parents are in the pivotal role of mediators between advertising influences and actual purchasing of products (Robertson 1979). Based on the literature review, a research model was developed to explore parental role in mediating both TV advertising exposure and childrens purchase requests induced by TV advertising and their relation to childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict. An exploratory study was then developed to test the developed research model. The study conducted in this work included parents of preschool children that attend Infancy school in Paradiso. The study was proposed with aim to test hypothesis: H1: Concept-oriented parents are apt to use active TV advertising mediation strategy, while socio-oriented parents are apt to use restrictive TV advertising mediation strategy, and pursue the following questions, intending to contribute to the previous research: RQ1: Is any of TV advertising mediation strategies, active or restrictive, strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests and parent-child conflict? RQ2: Is there a difference between Pluralistic, Protective, Consensual and Laissezfaire parents in type of purchase denial they make and are some types of denials strongly related to occurrence of childs purchase requests and parent-child conflict? The results concerning the tested hypothesis were different from expected: Protective and Consensual parents (socio-oriented) use mostly active mediation Consensual parents are apt to use combination of active and restrictive mediation
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Pluralistic parents were only two in the sample and their use of mediation strategy can not be established due to small presence in the sample Laissez-faire parents lack the use of both mediation strategies
The conclusions concerning the hypothesis H1, carried out from analysis of results are the following: The dependencies between socio-oriented parents and restrictive mediation in one hand, and concept-oriented parents and active mediation in the other, are rather moderate for the sample explored Strong dependence between socio-oriented parents (Consensual and Protective) and active mediation (alone or in combination with restrictive) is noticed, i.e. parents in the sample, although socio-oriented, use active or combination of active and restrictive mediation strategy, but lack to use only restrictive mediation, which does not confirm the Hypothesis H1 As an additional result, strong dependence is noticed between Laissez-faire parents, which are low on both concept and socio-orientation, and lack of both active and restrictive mediation Results related to the research question RQ 1 are the following: The dependence of active mediation and occurrence or lack of purchase requests is considered as weak to moderate The dependence of combination of active and restrictive mediation and occurrence or lack of purchase requests is considered as weak The dependence of active non-restrictive mediation with childs arguing reaction exists and it is considered as moderate to strong For restrictive mediation there is no enough data to compute dependencies
Consequently the following conclusions are carried out:
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There is only a weak or weak to moderate dependence between each mediation strategy and purchase requests, thus in the tested sample none of mediation strategies is moderately to strongly related to occurrence of purchase requests
Moderate to strong dependence between active mediation and childs reaction on purchase denial was found. It can be concluded that for the parents in the sample, active mediation is moderately to strongly related to childs arguing, but that arguing is not neither persistent neither intense
Parental active mediation has weak to moderate dependence with (low or lacking) occurrence of childs purchase request (a) and moderate to strong dependence with (low intensity) parent-child conflict induced by TV advertising (b)
The last finding is contrary to the finding of Buijzen and Valkenburg research (2005) that is that there is relation between active mediation and less conflict. One reason for the results of current work might be that parents reported to be more active in TV advertising discussion with their children than they really are. The other reason might be that the measures used in questionnaire and that investigate parental mediation strategies are not enough sensitive. They do not examine if, for example, parents explain to child why some specific advertised product is not good for children. It is possible that those dynamics can be more deeply investigated only by observational methods because some parents might not be conscious that they lack an explanation to their children or that their explanation is not adequate for the level of childs cognitive development. The finding that is in accordance with these researchers study is that socio-orientation is related to conflict, but through active and combination of active and restrictive mediation that use respondents in here presented research rather than through restrictive mediation only. Regarding the second research question the following results are obtained: Protective parents in the sample use explanation when deny purchase requests, but dependence is weak Consensual mothers do not use any specific but rather different types of purchase denial except power-assertive one, but dependence is weak
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The sample was too small to enable establishing if and which types of purchase denials Pluralistic or Laissez-faire parents use the most frequently Although children almost never ask for TV advertised products when parents in the sample use denial accompanied by explanation, dependence between these two categories is weak to moderate
For this sample, it can be concluded that parental denial accompanied by discussion (explanations and intention to discourage) is related with child negative reaction (arguing, but not persistent one) but this relation is very weak
Based on the results the following conclusions were carried out: There is weak dependence between the each parental communication pattern and type of parental denial to purchase request There was found weak and weak to moderate dependence between the type of parental denial and both conflict and purchase requests There is weak to moderate dependence between the parental denial w. explanation and (low) occurrence of purchase requests (a) and weak dependence between the parental denial w. explanation and (low intensity) parent-child conflict (b); Protective parents use denial w. explanation while Consensual parents use all types of denial except power-assertive one (c) 5.2 LIMITATIONS Family communication is difficult to study as most of it takes place in the intimate atmosphere of the home, a challenging place to conduct research. Consequently, what is known about the specific mechanisms of mediation is subject to the limitations of compromised investigative methods (Desmond et al. 1985, 465). The limitations of a study made in current work are already mentioned throughout previous chapters and especially in the chapter about methodology regarding the sample and method used. Due to accessible population, the sample was small and not randomly selected which limits the confidence in answers on research questions and in hypothesis test results. In
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accordance, in the chapter about the data analysis for every result is specified that is related to the sample that was a subject of the study. In addition, study has examined only one parents report of childrens behaviour. It is possible that parent report measure was less sensitive because only one parent was interviewed and children may make their requests to both parents. Parents may not be as aware of television as source of their childrens requests. Simultaneous data gathering on communication orientations, parental mediation and childs behaviours also from children would possibly make discussion of some of the issues cited here more conclusive. 5.3 FUTURE RESEARCH Because of the possibility that active mediation, which parents in the research here presented use, is not adequate one (lack of explanation or explanation not adapted to the level of childs cognitive development) and based on literature review that children's perceptions of their parents' views rather than their parents' actual beliefs and attitudes may have more impact on the development of children's orientations, researchers interested in unintended effects of childrens TV advertising exposure and parental role should examine those childrens perceptions. With this information, it would be possible to better understand the dynamics of parent-child communication regarding TV advertising. As already proposed in the chapter about methodology, research with parentchild dyads might be an appropriate one. In addition, it would be interesting to know whether the parent-child conflicts induced by TV advertising places significant strains on parent-child relations.
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19. Prasad, V. K., Rao, T. R., & Sheikh, A. A. (1978). Mother vs. commercial. Journal of Communication, 28,9196. 20. Resnik, A., & Stern, B. L. (1977). Childrens Television Advertising and Brand Choice: A Laboratory Experiment. Journal of Advertising, 6, 11-16. 21. Robertson, T. S. (1979). Parental mediation of television advertising effects. Journal of Communication, 29,1225. 22. Robertson, T. S., & Rossiter, J. R. (1976). Short-Run Advertising Effects on Children: A Field Study. Journal of Marketing Research, 27(1), 101106. 23. Robertson, T. S., & Rossiter, J. R. (1977). Childrens responsiveness to commercials. Journal of Communication, 13(1), 6870. 24. Robertson, T. S., Ward, S., Gatignon, H., & Klees, D. M. (1989). Advertising and children: A cross-cultural study. Communication Research, 16, 459485. 25. Robinson, T. H., Saphir, M. N., Kraemer, H. C., Varady, A., & Haydel, K. F. (2001). Effects of reducing television viewing on children's requests for toys: A randomized controlled trial. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 22, 179184. 26. Roedder John, D. (1999). Consumer socialization of children: A retrospective look at twenty-five years of research. Journal of Consumer Research, 26,183213. 27. Rose, G. M., Bush, V. D., & Kahle, L. (1998). The Influence of Family Communication Patterns on Parental Reactions toward Advertising: A CrossNational Examination. Journal of Advertising, 27 (4), 71-84. 28. Rossiter, J. R., (1979). Does TV Advertising Affect Children? Journal of Advertising Research, 19 (1), 49-53.
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29. Sheikh, A. A., & Moleski, L. M. (1977). Conflict in the family over commercials. Journal of Communication, 27(1), 152157. 30. Singer D. G., & Singer, J. L. (1998). Developing Critical Viewing Skills and Media Literacy in Children. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557, 164-179. 31. Solomon, M.R. (2004). Consumer behavior. Buying, Having, and Being. Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
32. Valkenburg, P. M., Krcmar, M., Peeters, A., & Marseille, N. M. (1999). Developing a scale to assess three styles of television mediation: Restrictive mediation, instructive mediation, and social coviewing. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43,5266. 33. Wackman, D. B., Wartella, E., & Ward, S. (1977). Learning to be Consumer: The Role of the Family. Journal of Communication, 27 (1), 138-151. 34. Walsh, A. D., Laczniak, R. N., & Carlson, L. (1998). Mothers Preferences for Regulating Childrens Television. Journal of Advertising, 27 (3), 23-36. 35. Ward, S. (1974). Consumer socialization. Journal of Consumer Research, 1,116. 36. Ward, S., & Wackman, D. (1972). Children's purchase influence attempts and parental yielding. Journal of Marketing Research, 9, 316-319. 37. Wiman, A. R. (1983). Parental influence and childrens responses to television advertising. Journal of Advertising, 12,1218.
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APPENDIX
APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
Dear parent, This questionnaire is a part of the Master Thesis project at Universita Svizzera italiana, Lugano. Your participation in the project would be very appreciated. The answering a questionnaire will take only 15 minutes. You are kindly asked to fill in the questionnaire if you are the parent that spends most of the time with the child. If you have more than one child, please, fill in this questionnaire by having in mind the child that attends infancy school and that brought this questionnaire at home. The questionnaire is anonymous and supposed to be returned to teachers until Friday, 29th of September 2006. 1. Please, indicate how many hours per week your child watches TV? ______ 2. Your child gets an idea from a TV commercial and asks you to buy him/her advertised product (please choose only one answer)
A few times a week
A few times a month
Every few months
Almost never
Never
If your answer is Never please go to the question number 6 3. Most of the time you are in the situation to say to your child 4. When you deny childs purchase request, your answer in general is (please, choose only one answer) g) h) i) j) Maybe sometimes No immediately, without explanation No with explanation that you are not in the situation to buy and tell the reason No with explanation, since this one is good opportunity to teach your child about advertising and consumption in general k) Before saying No you discus with your child with intention to somehow discourage childs desire for the product l) Other (please specify)___________________________________________________ 5. Please, indicate the usual childs reaction to your denial (please choose only one answer) f) g) h) i) j) Takes it OK Becomes disappointed Argues a little, then let it drop Argues a lot, keeps nagging Gets really angry YES NO
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APPENDIX
How Often Do You Tell Your Child (1-never; 2-rarely; 3-sometimes; 4-often) 6. That advertising depicts products as better than they really are? 1 7. That advertising does not always tell the truth? 8. That the purpose of advertising is to sell products? 9. That not all advertised products are of good quality? 10. That some advertised products are not good for children? 11. To turn off the television when (s)he is watching commercials? 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
12. That (s)he should not watch commercial networks because they broadcast too many commercials? 1 13. To switch to a channel that broadcasts fewer commercials? 14. That (s)he should not watch television advertising at all? 15. To watch specific networks that broadcast relatively few commercials? 16. To give his/her opinion when discussing family purchases? 17. To give his/her opinion about products? 18. To consider the advantages and disadvantages of products and brands? 19. That (s)he can codecide when you make purchases for him/her? 20. That you know which products are best for him/her? 21. Not to argue with you when you say no to their product requests? 22. Which products (s)he should or should not buy? 23. That (s)he is not allowed to ask for products? 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
88
APPENDIX
Finally, this section asks information regarding your demographics for classification purpose. Please circle the appropriate answer. Childs data 24. How old is your child of concern in this study? ________________ years 25. What is the gender of your child of concern in this study? 1 = male 2 = female 26. How many brothers/sisters does your child have? None 1 2 3 4 5 or more
27. If your child has brothers/sisters, what is his/her order among them? a) 1st born b) 2nd born c) 3rd born d) 4th born e) 5th born f) other Parents data 28. What is your gender? 1 = Male 2 = Female 29. What is your age? a) Less than 30 years b) 30-34 years c) 35-39 years d) 40-44 years e) 45-49 years f) 50-54 years g) 55-59 years h) More than 60 years 30. What is your highest education? a) Elementary school b) High school c) Professional school d) University
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APPENDIX
31. What is your working status (outside of home)? a) Full-time b) Part-time c) Not working outside the home d) Others
32. What is your total family income before taxes (including child support, alimony and all other income)? a) less than 4699 CHF b) 4700-6799 CHF c) 6800-8999 CHF d) 9000-11999 CHF e) More than 12000 CHF
33. Yours Nationality
Swiss
Non Swiss
34. If you are Non Swiss, please mark one of possibilities noted below in order to indicate where you are coming from Western Europe__________ Eastern Europe___________ Northern America_________ Southern America _________ Far East_________________ Middle East______________ South Asia_______________ Africa___________________ Australia_________________
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!
90
APPENDIX
Caro Genitore, Questo questionario fa parte di un progetto di tesi per un Master allUniversit della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. La Sua collaborazione molto apprezzata e il rispondere alle domande non Le prender pi di 15 minuti. Le chiesto di rispondere alle domande se il genitore che trascorre pi tempo con Suo figlio (Sua figlia / per comodit nel testo si parler di figlio o ragazzo). Se Lei ha pi di un figlio, compili per favore il formulario considerando il figlio che va a Scuola dellInfanzia e che Le ha portato a casa il questionario. Il questionario anonimo e si prega di ritornarlo al docente entro venerd 29 settembre 2006.
1. Indichi, per favore, mediamente quante ore alla settimana Suo figlio trascorre guardando la TV? ______ore 2. Suo figlio prende spunto dalle pubblicit in TV e Le chiede di comperargli articoli pubblicizzati (p.f. scelga solo una risposta)? 1 Qualche volta alla settimana 2 Qualche volta al mese 3 Una volta ogni qualche mese 4 Quasi mai 5 Mai
Se la Sua risposta "Mai", per favore passi direttamente alla domanda n 6 3. La maggior parte delle volte Si trova nella situazione di dover dire a Suo figlio: S NO
4. Quando si rifiuta di soddisfare una richiesta di acquisto da parte di Suo figlio, la Sua risposta in generale (p.f. scelga solo una risposta): m) n) o) p) Forse, prima o poi No, senza indugio e senza dare spiegazione No, spiegando che non nella condizione di comperarlo e motivando la decisione No, spiegando il motivo e cogliendo questa opportunit per insegnare al ragazzo cosa significa la pubblicit ed il consumo in generale q) Prima di dire no, discute con suo figlio con lintenzione di scoraggiarlo e fargli passare il desiderio di avere quellarticolo r) Altro (specificare)___________________________________________________ 5. Per favore, indichi la reazione usale di Suo figlio ad un rifiuto (p.f. scelga solo una risposta): a) b) c) d) e) Accetta deluso Discute un po e poi cede Discute a lungo, si irrita Si arrabbia
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APPENDIX
Quanto spesso dice a Suo figlio (1 mai; 2 raramente; 3 qualche volta; 4 spesso)
6. che la pubblicit descrive i prodotti meglio di quello che sono in realt? 7. che la pubblicit non dice sempre la verit? 8. che lo scopo della pubblicit vendere prodotti? 9. che non tutti i prodotti della pubblicit sono di buona qualit? 10. che non tutti i prodotti pubblicizzati sono adatti ai bambini? 11. di spegnere la televisione quando ci sono le pubblicit? 12. che non deve guardare le reti commerciali perch trasmettono troppa pubblicit? 13. di cambiare canale su trasmissioni meno commerciali? 14. che non deve assolutamente guardare le pubblicit alla TV? 15. di guardare reti specifiche che trasmettono meno pubblicit? 16. di dare il suo parere quando si discutono gli acquisti in famiglia? 17. di dare il suo parere sui prodotti? 18. di considerare vantaggi e svantaggi di prodotti e marche? 19. che potete decidere insieme quando fate degli acquisti per lui? 20. che Lei sa quali prodotti sono pi adatti a lui? 21. di non discutere con Lei quando dice di no alle sue richieste di acquisto? 22. quali prodotti lui dovrebbe o non dovrebbe comprare? 23. che non gli permesso chiedere di comprare degli articoli?
1 1 1 1 1 1
2 2 2 2 2 2
3 3 3 3 3 3
4 4 4 4 4 4
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
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APPENDIX
Le prossime domande si riferiscono ad informazioni utili ad una classificazione demografica. Per favore, indichi la risposta o faccia un cerchio attorno alla risposta appropriata.
Dati sul figlio: 24. Quanti anni ha Suo figlio, al quale si fa riferimento in questo studio? 25. Di quale sesso Suo figlio, al quale si fa riferimento in questo studio? 26. Quanti fratelli/sorelle ha Suo figlio? Nessuno 1 2 3 4 ________anni 1 = maschio, 2 = femmina
5 o pi
27. Se Suo figlio ha fratelli/sorelle, come si posiziona in termini di nascita tra loro? a) primogenito b) secondogenito c) terzogenito d) quartogenito e) quintogenito f) altro
Dati sul genitore: 28. Qual il Suo sesso? 29. Quanti anni ha? a) meno di 30 anni b) 30-34 anni c) 35-39 anni d) 40-44 anni e) 45-49 anni f) 50-54 anni g) 55-59 anni h) pi di 60 anni 30. Qual la Sua formazione pi elevata? a) Scuola elementare b) Scuola media c) Liceo, scuola superiore d) Scuola professionale e) Universit 1 = maschio, 2 = femmina
93
APPENDIX
31. Ha un lavoro (fuori casa)? a) A tempo pieno b) A tempo parziale c) Non lavoro fuori casa d) Altro_________________________________________________________________
32. Complessivamente per la famiglia, quant il totale mensile delle entrate prima delle tasse (incluso assegni famigliari, alimenti ed altre entrate)? a) Meno di 4699 CHF b) Tra 4'700 e 6'799 CHF c) Tra 6800 e 8'999 CHF d) Tra 9000 e 11999 CHF e) Pi di 12000 CHF
33. La Sua nazionalit :
Svizzera
Non svizzera
34. Se non svizzera, p.f. indichi la provenienza tra quelle elencate qui sotto: a) Africa b) Asia meridionale c) Australia d) Europa occidentale e) Europa orientale f) Estremo oriente g) Medio oriente h) Nord America i) Sud America
GRAZIE MILLE PER LA SUA PREZIOSA COLLABORAZIONE!
94

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University of Lugano Faculty of Communication Sciences ________________________________________________

Parental mediation of children's TV advertising exposure and its effects on children

Masters Thesis of Tanja Glii 04-983-839

Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Andreina Mandelli Academic year 2005/06

University of Lugano Faculty of Communication Sciences ________________________________________________

Parental mediation of children's TV advertising exposure and its effects on children

Masters Thesis of Tanja Glii 04-983-839

Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Andreina Mandelli Academic year 2005/06

za moju Lanuku, i njenu kucu, i njenu macu, i za mog Gilia

CHILDRENS TV VIEWING AND PURCHASE REQUESTS

1.1. CHILDRENS CONSUMER SOCIALIZATION AND PARENTS ROLE

1.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

RELATION AND EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ADVERTISING ON PARENT-CHILD

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

ADVERTISING EXPOSURE AND CHILDS PURCHASE

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

3.3.3. Data analysis procedure