Editorial

Citation

Brian Young, D. (2012), "Editorial", Young Consumers, Vol. 13 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/yc.2012.32113baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Young Consumers, Volume 13, Issue 2

Welcome to this second issue of 2012. We have three papers from the USA, two from Nordic countries, and one each from Saudi Arabia and India. These papers originate from countries across the globe and this is one of the characteristics and strengths of Young Consumers. In more detail:

Compulsive buying can be a problem for young adolescents and James and Camille Roberts have researched this in Texas. They manipulated stress levels in this group by presenting exam scenarios and found that they turned to compulsive buying to cope with the stress. Boys as well as girls were equally susceptible and this paper makes a valuable contribution to the already burgeoning literature on this dark side of the consumer society.

Dwane Dean is a frequent contributor to these pages and in this issue brings us an interesting paper on patronage likelihood of a proposed unisex hair salon with all-white female staff. The sample used consisted of youth from Maryland and sex and ethnicity were the demographics used in the analysis. Social identity theory was used in the construction of hypotheses and results showed that non-white men had strong preference for a male barber or stylist and would have a lower probability of using this service.

How do children use their possessions and their money in friendships? Using vignettes in focus groups Erika Lundy in Sweden explored the functions of material possessions and economic resources in peer relationships in nine-year-olds. She found that as predicted they used possessions to fit in with their peers but surprisingly money was used altruistically to show kindness – as you will see from the title of the paper.

In the health field, children frequently encounter paediatricians as part of the health service they experience. How do they feel? Susan Brudvig and Shaheen Borna in Indiana presented 138 children ranging from six to 12 years of age with photos of doctors varying on these dimensions and questioned them about the doctor’s likability, expertise, and trustworthiness. They found that generally obese service providers were judged less positively than non-obese service providers but that there was no statistically significant effect for trustworthiness.

Monica Chaudhary and Aayushi Gupta give us some valuable information about family decision processes from India, a BRIC country where incomes and consumption are growing rapidly. Using multivariate procedures they examine the child’s role at different stages in the decision-making process and for different clusters of goods – a useful matrix to use when considering the differing influences of children within families. A comprehensive and thoughtful study.

Robert Opoku has researched peer group purchase influence in Saudi Arabia. Peer influence is a powerful influence for young people and is of cross-cultural interest reflecting the well-known spectrum of collectivist versus individualist cultures – Saudi Arabia being on the collectivist end. The author sampled male university students and their conclusions provide an important insight into peer influence in this rarely studied country.

Hanna Leipämaa-Leskinen, Henna Jyrinki and Pirjo Laaksonen examined consumption diaries kept by Finnish university students and analysed them using the construct of necessity versus luxury items. They found that young adults define necessity consumption differently in different situations and that the importance of social activities was evident in all the groups of necessity consumption practices. The changing nature of the categorisation process of ‘necessity or luxury’ requires further research with young consumers.

Finally we have our regular column brought to you by GALA, the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance, where regulations and codes of practice across the world are described. This quarter we look at Nigeria.

I hope you enjoy reading all of these valuable papers and many thanks to all our reviewers and contributors without whom these regular issues would not be possible.

Dr Brian YoungEditor