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How Good A Shopper Am I? Conceptualizing Teenage Girls' Perceived Shopping Competence

Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2006 by Palan, Kay M

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The unwillingness and/or inability to maximize fully the use of environmental resources may be a partial contributor to the fact that not all purchase decisions resulted in positive outcomes for our informants. Many had regrets about purchases, and many also had trouble making decisions, stating that they did not know what looked good on them and that they needed advice to help them make decisions. Yet, they relied on friends who were perhaps no more competent than they were. Many informants also identified impulsive purchasing and managing money as problems that they hoped would go away as they got older and became more competent.

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Perhaps a significant factor in the informants' perceptions of lack of competence is that, by their own admission, they have not yet achieved a sufficient degree of self-confidence and self-control that seems to be critical to maximizing positive shopping outcomes. Informants hoped to overcome some of their limitations as they got older. Age may definitely have an impact on the level of shopping competence expressed by informants. Recent research on impulsivity among teenagers discusses brain structure and function in terms of executive control, which is related to behavioral inhibition and controlling impulsivity. The prefrontal cortex, which controls executive function, is one of the last areas of the brain to fully develop. As such, teenagers do not have the same ability as adults in terms of planning and regulating behavior (Pechmann et al. 2005). The more colloquial expression for this inability is lack of self-control, which often results in negative outcomes and a failure to achieve specific goals (Thompson 1994).

Teenagers are also struggling to form an identity and are not as confident as adults in terms of self-image. Adolescents often turn to peers to help them forge identities that are independent of their parents, which may make them even more self-conscious (Pechmann et. al. 2005). Our informants clearly relied on peers' opinions more than parents', yet parents were perceived to be more competent as shoppers. According to Solomon's (1983, 1992) symbolic interactionism theory, adolescents' self-consciousness and social anxiety should tend to make them more receptive to high-status products and heavily advertised brands because the products are believed to project a positive social image. Clearly, our informants were aware of store image and retail brands found at the mall and had clear likes and dislikes.

As teenagers acquire more expertise and experience as shoppers and as they mature mentally in terms of brain function, many of the self-confidence and self-control issues that seem to affect their ability to utilize resources effectively may diminish. However, until this happens there are public policy implications with respect to teen shopping that must be considered.

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The insights gained from this study suggest that we need to do a better job of educating adolescents, specifically females, with regard to shopping wisely. The informants in this study who appeared to have the best money management skills and who were able to control impulsivity were those who operated under parental spending guidelines or budgets, or who came from blue collar families where they were less likely to receive an allowance and were exposed to their parents' daily effort to pay bills and provide for the family. With regard to females, they are more likely to receive gifts of money and are not generally taught to be as money conscious as males (Furnham and Thomas 1984), yet they spend far more time in shopping environments than males of the same age. Further, as reported by Roberts (1998), young women are more likely than their male peers to be compulsive shoppers. If the tendency toward compulsive shopping begins during the teenage years because of a lack of self-control, then working to foster and develop better self-control during the pre-teen years may be an avenue worth pursuing. For example, having children at an early age take greater responsibility for making considered purchase decisions and examining the consequences of making hasty decision and having them explore with family and/or friends why they find it difficult to exercise self-control when shopping.

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How Good A Shopper Am I? Conceptualizing Teenage Girls' Perceived Shopping Competence

Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2006 by Palan, Kay M

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