Cross-national differences in consumer socialization, development, and behavior: a comparison of children in the United States and the Netherlands

With many studies on children and advertising presenting universal models of how children are socialized, develop and behave as consumers, this study tested whether such assumptions are appropriate by looking at differences between children and families in two of the countries where research on children and advertising is among the most robust–the Netherlands and United States. A total of 954 mothers of children between the ages of 5–12 from the United States and 437 from the Netherlands participated in the study. The results suggest that there are considerable differences in how children in these two countries are socialized as consumers and what parents report concerning their child’s consumer development and consumer behavior. These differences may be attributable to the differences in the consumer culture between the two countries.