Parental Influence on Children's Socialization to Gender Roles

Abstract
In a society which is rife with gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to
adopt gender roles which are not always fair to both sexes. As children move through
childhood and into adolescence, they are exposed to many factors which influence their
attitudes and behaviors regarding gender roles. These attitudes and behaviors are
generally learned first in the home and are then reinforced by the child's peers, school
experience, and television viewing. However, the strongest influence on gender role
development seems to occur within the family setting, with parents passing on, both
overtly and covertly, to their children their own beliefs about gender. This overview of
the impact of parental influence on gender role development leads to the suggestion that
an androgynous gender role orientation may be more beneficial to children than strict
adherence to traditional gender roles.

Introduction
Children learn at a very early age what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society.
Through a myriad of activities, opportunities, encouragements, discouragements, overt
behaviors, covert suggestions, and various forms of guidance, children experience the
process of gender role socialization. It is difficult for a child to grow to adulthood without
experiencing some form of gender bias or stereotyping, whether it be the expectation that
boys are better than girls at math or the idea that only females can nurture children. As
children grow and develop, the gender stereotypes they are exposed to at home are
reinforced by other elements in their environment and are thus perpetuated throughout
childhood and on into adolescence(Martin, Wood, & Little, 1990).

A child's burgeoning sense of self, or self concept, is a result of the multitude of ideas,
attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that he or she is exposed to. The information that
surrounds the child and which the child internalizes comes to the child within the family
arena through parent-child interactions, role modeling, reinforcement for desired
behaviors, and parental approval or disapproval (Santrock, 1994). As children move into
the larger world of friends and school, many of their ideas and beliefs are reinforced by
those around them. A further reinforcement of acceptable and appropriate behavior is
shown to children through the media, in particular, television. Through all these
socialization agents, children learn gender stereotyped behavior. As children develop,
these gender stereotypes become firmly entrenched beliefs and thus, are a part of the
child's self concept.

Parental Influence
A child's earliest exposure to what it means to be male or female comes from parents
(Lauer & Lauer, 1994; Santrock, 1994; Kaplan, 1991). From the time their children are
babies, parents treat sons and daughters differently, dressing infants in gender specific
colors, giving gender differentiated toys, and expecting different behavior from boys and
girls (Thorne, 1993). One study indicates that parents have differential expectations of
sons and daughters as early as 24 hours after birth (Rubin, Provenzano, & Luria, 1974).
Children internalize parental messages regarding gender at an early age, with awareness
of adult sex role differences being found in two-year-old children (Weinraub, Clemens,
Sachloff, Ethridge, Gracely, & Myers, 1984). One study found that children at two and a
half years of age use gender stereotypes in negotiating their world and are likely to
generalize gender stereotypes to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations (Fagot,
Leinbach, & O'Boyle, 1992; Cowan & Hoffman, 1986). Children even deny the reality of
what they are seeing when it doesn't conform to their gender expectations (i.e., a child
whose mother is a doctor stating that only men are doctors) (Sheldon, 1990).

Sons have a definite edge as far as parental preference for children is concerned. Most
parents prefer male children to female children throughout the world (Steinbacher &
Holmes in Basow, 1992, p. 129). Also, people who prefer sons are more likely to use
technology for selecting the sex of their child (Steinbacher & Gilroy, 1990). This
preference for male children is further emphasized by the finding that parents are more
likely to continue having children if they have only girls than if they have only boys
(Hoffman, 1977).

Reasons given by women for their preference for sons are to please their husbands, to
carry on the family name, and to be a companion to the husband. Reasons for wanting
daughters include having a companion for themselves and to have fun dressing a girl and
doing her hair (Hoffman, 1977).

Parents encourage their sons and daughters to participate in sex-typed activities,

including doll playing and engaging in housekeeping activities for girls and playing with
trucks and engaging in sports activities for boys (Eccles, Jacobs, & Harold, 1990).
Children's toy preferences have been found to be significantly related to parental sex-
typing (Etaugh & Liss, 1992; Henshaw, Kelly, & Gratton, 1992; Paretti & Sydney, 1984),
with parents providing gender-differentiated toys and rewarding play behavior that is
gender stereotyped (Carter, 1987). While both mothers and fathers contribute to the
gender stereotyping of their children, fathers have been found to reinforce gender
stereotypes more often than mothers (Ruble, 1988).

A study of children's rooms has shown that girls' rooms have more pink, dolls, and
manipulative toys; boys' rooms have more blue, sports equipment, tools and vehicles
(Pomerleau, Bolduc, Malcuit, & Cossette, 1990). Boys are more likely than girls to have
maintenance chores around the house, such as painting and mowing the lawn, while girls
are likely to have domestic chores such as cooking and doing the laundry (Basow, 1992).
This assignment of household tasks by gender leads children to link certain types of work
with gender.

Some studies have suggested that parent shaping as a socializing factor has little impact
on a child's sex role development (Lytton & Romney, 1991; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1980).
Other research, however, suggests that parents are the primary influence on gender role
development during the early years of life (Santrock, 1994; Miller & Lane in Berryman-
Fink, Ballard-Reisch, & Newman, 1993; Kaplan, 1991). Because socialization is a two-
way interaction, each person in the interaction influences the other (Lewis & Rosenblum,
1974); thus, parents and children engage in reciprocal interaction, with children both
responding to behaviors and eliciting behaviors (Kaplan, 1991). Also, development is
influenced by many social factors and children may best be understood in terms of their
environment (Bronfenbrenner, Alvarez, & Henderson, 1984).

Many studies have shown that parents treat sons and daughters differently (Jacklin,
DiPietro, & Maccoby; Woolett, White, & Lyon; and Parke & O'Leary, in Hargreaves &
Colley, 1986; Snow, Jacklin, & Maccoby, 1983; Power, 1981). The parent-child
relationship has effects on development that last well into adulthood. Because of these
long-lasting effects, the parent-child relationship is one of the most important
developmental factors for the child (Miller & Lane in Berryman-Fink, et al., 1993).

Parental attitudes towards their children have a strong impact on the child's developing
sense of self and self-esteem, with parental warmth and support being key factors for the
child (Richards, Gitelson, Petersen, & Hartig, 1991). Often, parents give subtle messages
regarding gender and what is acceptable for each gender - messages that are internalized
by the developing child (Arliss, 1991). Sex role stereotypes are well established in early
childhood. Messages about what is appropriate based on gender are so strong that even
when children are exposed to different attitudes and experiences, they will revert to
stereotyped choices (Haslett, Geis, & Carter, 1992).

Benefits of Androgynous Gender Role Orientation

While there may be some benefit to adhering to strict gender role stereotypes (i.e.,
providing a sense of security, facilitating decision making), there are also costs involved
in the maintenance of gender role stereotypes. These costs include limiting opportunities
for both boys and girls, ignoring talent, and perpetuating unfairness in our society (Beal,
1994). Parents who espouse an egalitarian attitude regarding gender roles are more likely
to foster this attitude in their children. Androgynous individuals have been found to have
higher self esteem (Lundy & Rosenberg, 1987; Shaw, 1983, Heilbrun, 1981), higher
levels of identity achievement (Orlofsky, 1977), and more flexibility in dating and love
relationships (DeLucia, 1987).

Children who have parents with strong egalitarian values tend to be more knowledgeable
about nonsex-typed objects and occupations than other children (Weisner & Wilson-
Mitchell, 1990). Children whose mothers work outside the home are not as traditional in
sex role orientation as children whose mothers stay home (Weinraub, Jaeger, & Hoffman,
1988). In fact, preschool children whose mothers work outside the home experience the
world with a sense that everyone in the family gets to become a member of the outside
world, and their sense of self includes the knowledge that they have the ability to make
choices which are not hindered by gender (Davies & Banks, 1992).

Families with one or more androgynous parent (i.e., a mom who repairs the family car or
a dad who bakes cookies for the PTA meeting) have been found to be highest on scores
of parental warmth and support. These androgynous parents are found to be highly
encouraging regarding achievement and developing a sense of self worth in sons and
daughters (Sedney, 1987; Spence & Helmreich, 1980). Because of the strong influence of
parents on gender role socialization, those parents who wish to be gender fair and
encourage the best in both their sons and their daughters would do well to adopt an
androgynous gender role orientation and encourage the same in their children.

INFLUENCE OF TELEVISION ON CHILDREN'S CONSUMER

SOCIALIZATION
ABSTRACT

This paper examines the varying influences of television by gender, age

and family income on children's consumer socialization. The aspects of
children's consumer socialization included in this study are children's
television viewing time, choice of favourite television programmes,
emulative behaviour of television characters and purchasing behaviour.
From a survey of children in Kota Bharu, Johor Bahru and Penang, it was
found that family income tended to best differentiate the children in
terms of their television viewing time, choice of favourite television
programmes, emulative behaviour and purchasing behaviour. Gender and
age were found
to explain only some aspects of children's consumer socialization.

INTRODUCTION

The role played by television in moulding children's behaviour as

consumers has been widely documented in marketing literature. Osman and
Aliah Hanim
(1987/88), for example, asserted that their sample of children from the
urban district of Petaling Jaya were able to recall unaided a wide
variety of brands for snacks, clothes, toothpaste and soft drinks as a
result of their television viewing patterns. Frideres (1973) concluded
from his study findings that television tended to create desires for
toys among small children. He further posited that television
advertisements might not affect all children directly. Instead informal
communication between children tended to also create needs in an
indirect manner. Robertson, Rossiter and Gleason (1979) have also found
some support for a direct
link between exposure to medicine advertisements and a child's beliefs,
attitudes and requests to parents regarding medicine.

This study attempts to contribute to the current literature by

examining how the influence of television on children's consumer
socialization varies by a child's gender, age and family income. The
use of demographic factors (such as age, income, gender, ethnicity and
socioeconomic status) as predictors of consumer behaviour is not new in
marketing but these factors have emerged as important in many studies
(Belk, Bahn and Mayer 1982, Hirschman 1981, Hirschman 1983, Munson and
Spivey 1981, Nik Rahimah 1991, Pol 1991). The varying influence of
demographic factors will be examined in this study in the context of
the number of hours children spent watching television, choice of
television programmes, emulative behaviour of television characters and
purchasing behaviour.

STUDY BACKGROUND
Children develop into consumers through a socialization process.
According to Ward (1974), consumer socialization refers to "the
processes by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, and
attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the
marketplace." Therefore, central to consumer socialization are the
issues of the learning processes, content of learning and permanence of
learning and implications for future behaviour. In other words, when we
talk of consumer socialization, some of the questions that have to be
answered include how children learn, from whom or from what, what has
been learnt and whether what has been learnt in childhood will
influence future behaviour.

McNeal (1992) has identified the primary socialization agents as

parents and marketers. They serve to introduce and indoctrinate the
children into the consumer role. Children acquire the skill and
knowledge to become consumers from their parents when accompanying them
to the store. By accompanying and observing their parents, the children
would first learn to request for a purchase, help select a product and
eventually make an independent purchase. Although parents play an
important part in
children's consumer socialization, McNeal asserted that as the children
grow, the marketers' role would become increasingly important as
parents have less time with their children.

The pivotal role of marketers in children's consumer socialization

emanates from children's exposure to the product, its packaging,
pricing, display and advertisements. Through marketing strategies and
activities, marketers are able to influence what the child consumer
will learn, feel, think, want and how
he/she will react towards the marketplace. The purpose of this study is
not to examine, in general, the role marketers play in children's
consumer socialization but to examine an aspect of the marketers' role,
particularly through the television medium. The influence of television
in consumer socialization stems from marketers'
decision to utilize the medium for advertising and through their
sponsorship of programmes and product usage on the air. As stated
earlier, several past studies have found that children's exposure to
television advertisements tended to create a desire for the product and
to shape children's beliefs, attitudes and requests for the product
(Frideres 1973; Robertson, Rossiter and Gleason 1979).

Ward (1972) examined the influence of television on children's consumer

socialization process by looking at children's perceptions, judgments
and explanations of television advertising. Based on a sample of sixty-
seven children aged between five and twelve years old, Ward concluded
that awareness or an understanding of advertisements was being
influenced by age. The older the child, the better is the child's
awareness of what an advertisement is and the understanding of the
purpose of advertising. Older children also tended to question the
credibility of advertisements. Goldberg (1990) in a quasi- experimental
study in Quebec, Canada asserted
that children's exposure to television tended to correlate positively
with children's recognition of toys and having more children's cereal
at home.

Income is an important variable in explaining the amount of time

children spent watching television. Comstock et al. ( 1978) have found
that lower income children tended to view much more television than
middle or upper-middle income children. As a result of the differences
in viewing time, the impact of television on children's consumer
socialization is expected to vary by the income level. Goldberg (1990)
has found that low income children tended to purchase a greater number
of children's cereals than upper-lmiddle income children as a result of
their varying exposure to television advertisements .

The influence of television on children's behaviour has long been of

concern among parents. Grossbart and Crosby (1984) have suggested that
heavy television advertising of food products creates some
concern among parents because it promotes poor
nutritional habits and serious health risks.
Another source of television influence emanates from
the advertisements interference with the content
and/or structure of parent-child interactions.
Television advertising can create a conflict between
a child and his/her parents when they disagree as to
what is "best" for the child.

From the above discussion, it can be summarized that

television plays an important role in children's
consumer socialization. This study differs from
previous ones by looking at how gender, age and
family income influence the amount of time children
spent watching television, the children's choices of
favourite television programmes, children's
emulative behaviour of television characters, and
purchasing behaviour. The examination of the
demographic influences on socialization factors is
important in order to understand the prevailing
patterns available in the predominant segments of
the Malaysian society. From this study, we are not
only able to examine the differences in television
influences between boys and girls but we could also
examine the influences of age and family income.

METHOD

A survey methodology was utilized in this study

covering the three areas of Kota Bharu, Johor Bahru
and Penang. Since the target respondents comprised
children of primary school-age group, the first
stage of sampling was done at the school level.
Three schools were selected in each of the areas.
After the names of the schools had been selected,
perrnission to collect data at the schools was
obtained from the Ministry of Education. Each
school was then requested to select ten to fifteen
students per school year ranging from standard one
to standard six, bearing in mind also the students'
ethnicity and gender.

A structured questionnaire was then distributed to

the selected students for them to take home for
either the mother or the father to fill up. The
students were requested to bring the completed
questionnaires back to school on the next day for
collection by the researchers. Collecting data from
parents is widely practised among researchers of
children's behaviour because of the limitations
faced when trying to interview children (Grossbart,
Carlson & Walsh 1991; McNeal 1992). Because of
children's limited language ability and shyness,
data secured from them are most often unreliable and
invalid. Besides parents tend to be more articulate
and tend to know their children's activities and
behaviour better than the children themselves. Out
of 622 questionnaires distributed, 508 were returned
complete and usable. The questionnaires were then
coded, edited and analysed by using the SPSSx
software on the mainframe computer at UKM. Some of
the statistical analyses used in this study include
Chi-square analysis, analysis of variance and simple
linear regression. The choice of statistical
analysis was made based on the type of data being
collected.

RESULTS

This section is discussed in two parts. The first

part describes the characteristics of the sample
obtained in this study. The second part discusses
the study findings pertaining to the influence of
child's gender, age and income on amount of time
spent watching television, choice of favourite
television programmes, emulative behaviour of
television characters and purchasing behaviour.

Sample Characteristics

Table I below provides the demographic and socio

economic characteristics of the sample of children
and their parents. As evident from the Table, there
is more or less equal distribution of children at
each age except among the six-year olds. Our sampling
resulted in more girls being included in the sample
than boys. There is also an over-representation of
Malays and an underrepresentation of Chinese in the
sample. A majority of the sampled children came from
a family with less than five children and a gross
household monthly income of less than RM4000. In sum,
it is apparent that the resulting sample differs from
the profile of the Malaysian population. Any form of
generalization should, therefore, be done with
caution .

Demographic Influences on Socialization Factors

As shown in Table 2, the amount of time children spent

watching television on a school day or on a weekend
is not influenced by the children's gender. Boys and
girls tended to spend an equal amount of time
watching television onschool days and on weekends.
However, age plays an important role in explaining
the amount of time children spent watching television
on a school day. On weekends, children of different
age tended to watch an equal amount of television.
From Table 2 we can also observe that family income
constitutes a strong predictor of the amount of time
children spent watching television. The adjusted
R-square yields a 16% and 23% explanation,
respectively, in the variations of the television
viewing time for school days and weekends.

The demographic influences on the children's choices

of favourite television programmes are evident in
Table 3. In the questionnaire, parents were asked
to name three of their children's favourite television
programmes without ranking which is the most favourite,
second or third favourite. From Table 3, there is
support for the influence of gender on choice on the
first and third listed favourite television programmes
but the influence is insignificant on the second-listed
choice. Although an overwhelming number of boys and
girls tended to love watching cartoons, the girls also
preferred to watch dramas and movies while the boys
preferred to watch thrillers.

Age appears to also exert an influence on the

children's choice of favourite television
programmes. As a child gets older, preference for
cartoon shows tended to decrease. Instead interest
in watching dramas, movies, comedy and variety shows
increased with the increase in a child's age. From
Table 3, it is also evident that family income plays
an important role in explaining children's choices
of favourite television programmes. Children from
families with gross monthly household income of more
than RM2000 tended to still love watching cartoons
like their other counterparts but their interests
were more diversified into other types of programmes
such as dramas and thrillers.

Children's tendencies to emulate television

characters were captured on the questionnaire by
asking parents to indicate the frequency that a
child expressed an interest to dress like the
television character in his/her favourite television
programme, interest to become just like the
television character and the frequency that a child
copied the behaviour of the television character.
The results in Table 2 indicate a partial support
for the influence of gender. The boys and girls
expressed a different level of desire to become like
the television character. Further, there is a
difference in the extent that boys and girls copied
the behaviour of television characters.

Age does not seem to exert a significant difference

in emulative behaviour amongst children. However,
family income appears to play a very important role
in explaining children's emulative behaviour. The b
values of the simple linear regression analyses in
Table 2 are all significant and sizeable. As family
income increases, there is a lower tendency for
emulative behaviour amongst the children (high
frequency was coded with a low value and a low
frequency was coded with a high value resulting in
positive b values).

The influences of demographic variables on

children's purchasing behaviour are captured on two
items in Table 2 and two items in Table 3. Parents
were requested to furnish information on the
relative frequency in which the child requested to
buy the product seen in a favourite television
programme, relative frequency of the child's request
in response to a television advertisement and two
types of products requested to be purchased as a
result of the child's exposure to television
advertisements .

As can be seen in Table 2, gender does not exert a

significant influence in the frequency of purchase
requests. Gender also does not influence the type
of products requested to be purchased as a result of
the children's exposure to television
advertisements. In other words, there appears to be
no significant differences in the types of products
requested by boys and girls.

Age does not play a significant role in explaining

the frequency of purchase requests. Children of
different ages from six to twelve tended to make the
same number of purchase requests to their parents as
a result of their exposure to products on their
favourite television programmes or advertisements.
However, there is a partial support for the
influence of age on the types of products requested
to be purchased. Foods and snacks are the most
common items requested to be purchased by the
children. The relative frequency of purchase
requests for food increases with the child's age
until the child is about nine after which the
frequency stabilizes. There is also a tendency
among older children to make more purchase requests
for clothing than younger children.

The influence of family income is significant for

all four items on purchasing behaviour.
Surprisingly, children from low-income families
tended to make more purchase requests than children
from high-income families (positive b values were
obtained because high frequency of request was coded
with a low value and low frequency of request was
coded with a high value).
Children from families with gross monthly income
exceeding RM2000 tended to make purchase requests
for toys while the other group of children tended to
request for food and snacks.

DISCUSSION

The influence of television on children's consumer

socialization is examined in this study by looking
at the moderating influences of such demographic
variables as child's gender, age and family income.
Of the three demographic variables, the most
influential in explaining differences in
socialization patterns is the family income. The
statistical results with family income functioning
as a predictor indicate significant findings for all
socialization variables tested in the study.
Further, the effect size of family income as
reported by adjusted R-square ranges from 11 to 34%
suggesting that family income is able to explain 11
to 34% of the variation in the socialization factor.
According to Sawyer and Ball (1981), these effect
sizes can be classified as medium to large.

When compared to family income, gender and age are

less influential in explaining the socialization
factors. Significant results were obtained for only
four relationships tested for the influence of
gender and age. The effect sizes of these two
demographic variables as shown in Table 2 are also
much smaller than that obtained for family income.
However, it should not be misconstrued that these
two demographic variables are not important for
future research in children's consumer
socialization. Instead, future researchers should
exercise caution when using these two variables as
predictors because of their varying influences and,
therefore, appropriate circumstances for using them
must be identified.

This study finding has strongly established the

influence of television on children's consumer
socialization especially as moderated by family
income. The influence of television on children's
consumer socialization does not occur equally across
all income levels but is contingent on the level of
income. For example, there is a greater extent of
imitation of the behaviours of television characters
amongst children of lower income families than
higher income families. Similarly, there is a
greater frequency of product purchase requests made
by lower income children than higher income
children.

The differential impact of television on children

based on family income is a useful finding for most
marketers for their promotional strategy
formulation. However, marketers should exercise
caution because they could probably be critiqued for
stimulating demand in a market segment that could
least afford to make the purchase.