The Effect of Parenting on Adolescent Susceptibility to Peer Influence:
Mediating Role of Self-Esteem
Zhiyong Yang
Department of Marketing
University of Texas at Arlington
Box 19469, 701 S. West Street, Arlington, TX 76019
Tel: 817-272-0153, Fax: 817-272-2854, E-mail: zyang@uta.edu
Michel Laroche
Royal Bank Distinguished Professor of Marketing
John Molson School of Business
Concordia University
Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, E-mail: laroche@jmsb.concordia.ca
Ashesh Mukherjee
Associate Professor of Marketing and Desautels Faculty Scholar
Desautels Faculty of Management
McGill University
Montreal, QC H3A 1G5, E-mail: ashesh.mukherjee@mcgill.ca
Acknowledgement: The authors acknowledge financial and data support from Statistics Canada
to Zhiyong Yang.
The Effect of Parenting on Adolescent Susceptibility to Peer Influence:
Mediating Role of Self-Esteem
ABSTRACT
Individuals are often influenced by the opinions of peers, such as their friends, activity
partners, and colleagues at work (Price and Feick 1984). This is especially true during adolescent
years, a time when individuals are particularly sensitive to ideas and trends popular among their
peers (Bachmann, John, and Rao 1993). Peer influence on adolescents has significant marketing
and public policy implications, since many adolescent decisions ranging from brand choice to
substance abuse are affected by the opinions of peers (Kandel 1996; Rose, Boush, and Friestad
1998; Wooten and Reed 2004). In fact, peers influence not just adolescents’ choices at the brand
level, but also their attitudes towards retailers, amount of money spent shopping, and attitudes
towards consumption in general (Batra, Homer, and Khale 2001; Mangleburg, Doney, and
Bristol 2004). Peer influence is also viewed as one of the most important factors, if not the most
important one, to affect adolescent smoking or other forms of consumer misbehaviors (Akers and
Jensen 2006).
Acknowledging the important role peers play in individuals’ consumption-related
decisions, previous research in marketing has validated the fundamental role of susceptibility to
peer influence (SPI) and its powerful impact on consumer behavior, where SPI is defined as the
tendency for individuals to look to standards from peers to develop their own motivations,
attitudes, and behaviors (Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel 1989). Despite the vital role SPI plays in
understanding consumer behavior, little research has been conducted to investigate the driving
forces of susceptibility. This issue is important because knowing about the key antecedents of
SPI allows researchers and practitioners can develop effective intervening strategies to alter
individuals’ vulnerability to peer influence.
In the present research, we fill this gap through examining the effects of parenting
strategies on SPI among adolescents. Specifically, we develop an integrative model of adolescent
susceptibility to peer influence that includes parenting strategies (parental responsiveness and
parental psychological control) as driver, adolescents’ self-esteem as mediator, and stage at
adolescence as moderator of susceptibility to peer influence. The overarching finding in our
studies is that responsive parenting decreases susceptibility by bolstering adolescents’ selfesteem, while psychologically controlling parenting increases susceptibility without influencing
adolescents’ self-esteem. This is especially true for children at their mid- and late-adolescence
stages. Notably, these results were observed in both cross-sectional (Studies 1 and 2) and
longitudinal data (Study 3), as well as data from both adolescents and their parents. Implications
of the results for improving the effectiveness of parent-oriented anti-smoking campaigns are
discussed.
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