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Do Parents and Peers Influence Adolescents’ Monetary Intelligence and Consumer Ethics? French and Chinese Adolescents and Behavioral Economics

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Abstract

Adolescents have increasing discretionary income, expenditures, and purchasing power. Inventory shrinkage costs $123.4 billion globally to retail outlets. Adolescents are disproportionately responsible for theft and shoplifting. Both parents and peers significantly influence adolescents’ monetary values, materialism, and dishonesty as consumers. In this study, we develop a theoretical model involving teenagers’ social (parental and peer) attachment and their consumer ethics, treat adolescents’ money attitude in the context of youth materialism as a mediator, and simultaneously examine the direct (Social Attachment → Consumer Ethics) and indirect paths (Social Attachment → Money and Materialism → Consumer Ethics). Results of 1018 adolescents (France = 534 and China = 484; average age = 15.21) illustrate that social attachment discourages unethical beliefs directly, but encourages it indirectly through monetary values. Our multi-group analyses demonstrate a novel paradox: The correlation between parental and peer attachments is smaller in France than in China, but similar across gender. Parents contribute more than peers to social attachment in France, but both carry equal weight in China. There is a negative direct path for the Chinese sample and for girls. Indirectly, parental attachment prevents French teenagers’ unethical beliefs, whereas peer attachment promotes boys’ unethical intention, supporting the notion—bad company corrupts good morals. Across both culture and gender, monetary attitude excites dishonesty consistently for all adolescents. A negative direct path exists for Chinese boys only (the Pygmalion Effect for male little emperors). Overall, social attachment reduces unethical beliefs. Parental and peer supports shape teenagers’ monetary intelligence and ethical or unethical decision making, differently, across culture and gender. We provide theoretical, empirical, and practical implications to ethical parenting, peer attachment, monetary values, and business ethics.

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Notes

  1. Just so, every good tree bears good fruit.

  2. Internal consistency is a type of convergent validity which seeks to assure a moderate correlation among the indicators for a construct. Average variance extracted AVEs above .5 are treated as indications of convergent validity (Fornell and Larcker 1981).

  3. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matthew 7: 13–14).

  4. Give and gifts will be given to you (Luke 6: 38).

  5. Hebrew 13: 5. Store up treasures in Heaven. You cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6: 20, 24).

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovation Research Team (PCSIRT) in University, Ministry of Education, China (Grant No. IRT 13030) to the third author. We would like to thank Scott J. Vitell for his support and encouragement; two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions; and late Fr. Wiatt Funk, Deacon Pete Semich, Marc Singer, Dan Morrell, Frank Cathey Jr., Joshua D. Pentecost, and Theresa Li-Na Tang for their advice and assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SKEMA Business School, MERCUR Research Center, Université de Lille, Avenue Will Brandt, 59 777, Euralille, France

    Elodie Gentina

  2. Department of Management, Jennings A. Jones College of Business, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Thomas Li-Ping Tang

  3. Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 1954 Hua Shan Rd., Shanghai, 200030, China

    Qinxuan Gu

Authors
  1. Elodie Gentina
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  2. Thomas Li-Ping Tang
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  3. Qinxuan Gu
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Correspondence to Thomas Li-Ping Tang.

Appendices

Appendix: Items and Constructs of Our Major Measures

Social Bonds*

Parental Attachment

  1. 1.

    My parents put a lot of time and energy into helping me

  2. 2.

    My parents find time to talk to me

  3. 3.

    My parents spend a lot of time with me

Peer Attachment

  1. 4.

    My friends like me for who I am

  2. 5.

    My friends are comforting

  3. 6.

    My friends are helpful

Life Satisfaction**

  1. 7.

    I am happy in my life

  2. 8.

    Are you happy in general?

Symbolic Meaning of Money*

Security

  1. 1.

    Saving money give me a sense of security

  2. 2.

    It is very important to me to save money for the future

  3. 3.

    I prefer to save money because I never know when I will need the cash

Budget

  1. 4.

    I budget my money very well

  2. 5.

    I spend my money wisely

  3. 6.

    I spend my money very carefully

Materialism (Youth Materialism)*

  1. 7.

    The only kind of job I want when I grow up is the one that gets me a lot of money

  2. 8.

    I would be happier if I had more money to buy more things for myself

Consumer Ethics (Muncy and Vitell 1992)***

Actively Benefiting from Illegal Activities

  1. 1.

    Giving misleading price information to a clerk for an unpriced item†

  2. 2.

    Using the phone card–SIM–of a cell phone that does not belong to you†

  3. 3.

    Drinking a can of soda in a store without paying for it†

  4. 4.

    Changing price-tags on merchandise in a retail store

  5. 5.

    Returning damaged goods when the damage was your fault

Passively Benefiting

  1. 6.

    Lying about a child’s age to get a lower price†

  2. 7.

    Not saying anything when the waiter or waitress miscalculates a bill in your favor†

  3. 8.

    Getting too much change and not saying anything†

  4. 9.

    Being on holidays in a rented apartment with your family, you use an Internet connection without paying for it

Deceptive or Questionable

  1. 10.

    Knowingly using an expired coupon for merchandise†

  2. 11.

    Returning merchandise to a store by claiming it was a gift when it was not†

  3. 12.

    Using a coupon for merchandise you did not buy†

No Harm/No Foul

  1. 13.

    Spending over an hour trying on clothes and not buying anything†

  2. 14.

    Downloading movies on Internet rather than buying them†

  3. 15.

    Returning merchandise because you don’t like it†

  4. 16.

    Borrowing a CD from a friend, burning it rather than buying it

Note All items were measured using a 5-point scale with different scale anchors.

* Strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).

** Not at all happy (1) to very happy (5).

*** Strongly believe that it is wrong (1) to strongly believe that it is not wrong (5).

High score means doing something unethical.

† Items used in the theoretical model.

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Gentina, E., Tang, T.LP. & Gu, Q. Do Parents and Peers Influence Adolescents’ Monetary Intelligence and Consumer Ethics? French and Chinese Adolescents and Behavioral Economics. J Bus Ethics 151, 115–140 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3206-7

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