Family Consumption Decisions: Literature Review and Extension —The Psycho-Social Case of Single-Mother Families and Their Early Adolescent Daughters

Studies of family consumption decisions have investigated children’s relative influence in different stages of thebuying process, mostly on products directly relevant to them or to the family as a whole but not on the influenceof children on consumption of products that are used by their parents. In order to extend the existing literature,this paper suggests focusing on mothers - early adolescent daughters (10-15) – vicarious role modeltri-directional relationships as drivers of consumption behaviors. Previous studies dealt with mothers and theiradolescent daughters, 15-18 years old. However, according to the APA (2001), adolescents are generally defined as youth ages 10 to 18 years old. In addition, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2008), single-parent, mostly mothers, American households increased from 11 percent of all households in 1970 to 29 percent in 2007, As a result, it is necessary to research the relative influence of adolescent daughters in households which include the “traditional family†compared to single-mother families. Four different samples are required in order to research these paper propositions and the possible differences between adolescent daughter’s ages (10-15 vs. 15-18) and their family unit structure (traditional families vs. single-mother families).