The purpose of this study is to investigate how the process
of consumer socialization will determine adolescents’ decision-making
styles. Eight decision-making styles were conceptualized
as outcomes of the socialization process, which
is acquired via interaction with socialization agents, namely
parents, peers, printed media, television commercials and
in-school education. The study also proposed five social
structural variables (social class, gender, ethnicity, residence
and religion) as being associated with the socialization
agents and decision-making styles. The study sample
consisted of 934 adolescents between the ages of 16 and
19 years. The data were collected using a self-administered
questionnaire and analysed with the SPSS computer program.
As a result of regression analyses, significant relationships
were found between social structural factors and
socialization processes, suggesting that the influence of
socialization agents on adolescents may vary according to
certain demographic characteristics. Significant relationships
were also found between social structural factors
and socialization processes. Peers appeared to be the most
important agents of consumer socialization, contributing to
a variety of desirable as well as undesirable consumer decision
styles. Printed media and television commercials were
also found to be significant sources of the acquisition of
both desirable and undesirable decision-making styles. Parents
and in-school education, however, were insignificant in
the acquisition of any decision-making styles among adolescents.
Information obtained from this study could be useful
to government agencies and consumer educators. The
most revealing finding of this study is that parents did not
contribute to the formulation of decision-making orientation
for adolescents. This points to the need for consumer educators
to take steps in designing programmes that will
involve parents as primary socialization agents at home; this
may be facilitated via printed materials. Apart from this, the
information can also be helpful in enabling marketers to be
more effective in targeting various adolescent markets by
formulating marketing strategies according to demographic
factors, socialization process and decision-making styles.