Loss of Control and Self-Regulation: The

Role of Childhood Lessons

NOAH VANBERGEN
JULIANO LARAN

This article demonstrates that a loss of personal control leads to an increase in self-
regulatory behavior. This occurs because a loss of control puts consumers at a defi-
cit relative to one of the major lessons they learn during their childhood, which is to
have control over the outcomes of their actions. This deficit triggers a compensatory
process focused on following other lessons that consumers believe they learned

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during their childhood. Because exerting self-regulation is another major lesson par-
ents emphasize, consumers engage in self-regulatory behavior to compensate for a
loss of personal control. However, when consumers believe their parents empha-
sized self-regulation less strongly during childhood (i.e., they believe their parents
had a more permissive style), a loss of control can reduce self-regulatory behavior.
These findings have implications for what we know about the effects of childhood
experiences on adult consumer behavior, the importance of individuals’ beliefs
about childhood experiences in determining adult behavior, the consequences of
low personal control, and the antecedents of self-regulatory behavior.

Keywords: childhood socialization, personal control, self-regulation, self-control,

compensatory behavior

I n everyday life, consumers have varying degrees of con-

trol over their environment and experiences. While con-
sumers are often in control of the outcomes they experience,
control is threatened in other cases. This can occur outside
of the marketplace, such as when close friends are affected
by diseases with unpredictable outcomes or there are natural
disasters, or in the marketplace, such as when economic
conditions are difficult or marketers fail to offer products
(e.g., stockouts) that are important for people’s daily sur-
vival. While research shows that individuals experiencing
low personal control respond by seeking alternative sources
of control (Cutright 2012; Durante and Laran, forthcoming;
Noah VanBergen (nvanbergen@bus.miami.edu) is a doctoral candi-
date in the Marketing Department, and Juliano Laran (laran@miami.edu)
is professor of marketing, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, 33124-
6524. The authors thank Anthony Salerno for his helpful comments on a
previous version of this article. The authors also thank the editor, associate
editor, and three anonymous reviewers for their help along the review
process.
Vicki Morwitz served as editor, and Aparna Labroo served as associate
editor for this article.
Advance Access publication August 2, 2016
C The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.
V
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com  Vol. 43  2016
Friesen et al. 2014; Kay et al. 2008), in this research we pro-
pose an alternative mechanism.
Drawing from consumer socialization and compensatory
behavior, we propose that adult consumers are guided by
the lessons they believe their parents emphasized during
the process of childhood socialization. While children
come from a wide variety of home environments that differ
according to ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic condi-
tions, and familial structures, the literature points to impor-
tant areas of overlap in the goals of childhood socialization
(Citlak et al. 2008). These goals include granting children
personal control as they mature (Carrasco et al. 2011;
Gauvain and Huard 1999; Keller et al. 2006; Miller and
Harwood 2002; Ng et al. 2012), as well as teaching chil-
dren the importance of self-regulation (Gralinski and Kopp
1993; Houck and LeCuyer-Maus 2004). As such, concepts
learned from an early age and emphasized throughout
childhood become part of individuals’ value system and
worldview (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Kalantari 2012).
For these reasons, we propose that later in life when adult
consumers experience violations of lessons they associate
with their childhood experiences, it triggers compensatory
behavior aimed at restoring consistency with childhood
DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucw042

534
VANBERGEN AND LARAN
socialization. As part of this process, consumers who expe-
rience low personal control tend to engage in self-
regulation when they believe self-regulation was strongly
emphasized during their childhood.
This investigation is associated with a tradition of re-
search on consumer socialization of children (John 1999).
Here, instead of examining how children behave, we focus
on how beliefs about childhood experiences can influence
adult consumers’ behavior (Griskevicius et al. 2011; Mittal
and Griskevicius 2014; Richins and Chaplin 2015).
Therefore, we investigate how consumers’ beliefs about
their parents’ style, which are formed by their recollection
of the lessons emphasized by parents (e.g., making fewer or
more demands that require self-regulation), influence re-
sponses to low control. We test our theory in three studies.
Study 1 provides initial evidence for our conceptualization
by showing that consumers increase their self-regulatory be-
havior following an experience of low control, but only
when consumers believe their parents had a demanding
style, which is more focused on self-regulation. For con-
sumers who believe their parents had a permissive style,
which does not emphasize self-regulation, low control does
not increase self-regulatory behavior. Study 2 further inves-
tigates the role of beliefs about parenting style by measuring
the recollection of lessons consumers were taught by their
parents growing up, and finds that low control increases (de-
creases) self-regulation for consumers who recall that their
parents did (did not) emphasize self-regulation. Study 3 di-
rectly manipulates beliefs about parenting styles, demon-
strating that contextual information highlighting the idea that
parents mostly teach their children about seeking pleasure
also reverses the effect of low control on self-regulation.
CHILDHOOD SOCIALIZATION
Childhood socialization refers to the process by which a
child’s behaviors, attitudes, and social skills are influenced,
primarily by parents, to mold the child into a functioning
member of society (Maccoby and Martin 1983; Taylor,
Clayton, and Rowley 2004). Through the process of child-
hood socialization, individuals learn how to interpret their
experiences, as well as their place in society (Berger and
Luckmann 1966), a process most heavily shaped by parents
(Taylor et al. 2004). This process is extremely important
for understanding consumer behavior because it is during
socialization that a young consumer develops the skills
necessary to function in the marketplace (Carlson and
Grossbart 1988; Ward 1974).
Childhood Socialization Goals
The developmental literature shows that parents differ
with regard to how they interact with their children.
535
According to Darling and Steinberg (1993), parents affect
child development through three constructs: socialization
goals (i.e., parental values and the goals toward which par-
ents socialize children), parenting practices (i.e., parents’
specific behaviors aimed at achieving socialization goals),
and parenting style (i.e., parental attitudes toward the child
that create an “emotional climate” in which parental be-
haviors are expressed; Darling and Steinberg 1993, 488).
An examination of the literature reveals that the goals that
parents have for the development of their children are quite
consistent, as they reflect the values society wants children
to learn (Citlak et al. 2008; Keller and Joscha 2013). These
goals, we propose, can affect consumer decision making
(Carlson, Grossbart, and Walsh 1990; Kim, Yang, and Lee
2009).
In this regard, one of the most highly endorsed socializa-
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tion goals in Western samples is children’s self-
maximization, which reflects the ideas of autonomy and
viewing children as individual agents who are responsible
for the outcomes of their actions (Keller et al. 2006; Miller
and Harwood 2002; Ng et al. 2012; Rutherford 2009). This
endorsement is reflected in the general tendency to allow
children more control as they age (Carrasco et al. 2011;
Forehand and Jones 2002; Gralinski and Kopp 1993),
which fits the overarching aim of socialization (i.e., to
mold children into functioning members of society;
Maccoby and Martin 1983; Taylor et al. 2004).
This importance is noted by developmental psycholo-
gists: “A reading of varied literatures suggests that early
goals serve to protect children and ensure their survival,
whereas later socialization shifts toward encouraging chil-
dren’s autonomy and integrating them into the family and
wider social networks” (Gralinski and Kopp 1993, 574).
Supporting these ideas, Roberts, Block, and Block (1984,
591) find that parents rate the item “teaches child that he/
she is responsible for what happens” as increasingly impor-
tant as children age. In addition, Carrasco et al. (2011)
found that children perceive a decrease in the extent to
which parents exert control as they transition to adoles-
cence. In short, promoting an understanding of personal
control is a consistent theme of childhood socialization.
While children’s personal control is clearly a necessary
aspect of fostering self-maximization, there are other im-
portant socialization goals. The widely used Socialization
Goals Interview taps the long-term goals parents have for
their children (Harwood 1992). Parents’ responses to these
interviews tend to fall into one of five categories of sociali-
zation goals (Citlak et al. 2008; Durgel et al. 2009; Miller
and Harwood 2002): (1) self-maximization (being an inde-
pendent child that reaches their full potential), (2) self-
regulation (avoiding unwanted behaviors), (3) lovingness
(the ability to form and maintain close interpersonal rela-
tionships), (4) decency (being hardworking and law
536
abiding), and (5) proper demeanor (behaving respectfully
to others). We focus here on personal control and self-
regulation, which are both goals parents tend to have for
their children.
Parenting Styles and Childhood Socialization
Goals
While the goals just listed are common, different par-
enting styles can shape overarching attitudes about the so-
cialization process and how strongly parents emphasize
self-regulatory behavior. Research on parenting styles cate-
gorizes parents according to patterns of parent–child inter-
actions (Baumrind 1971; Maccoby and Martin 1983).
According to Maccoby and Martin’s (1983) influential
framework, parents vary along the two orthogonal dimen-
sions of demandingness and responsiveness.
Demandingness is characterized by the provision of struc-
ture, order, and predictability, as well as shaping the
child’s behavior and restraining potentially disruptive be-
havior. Responsiveness is characterized by the provision of
emotional warmth and supportive actions (Baumrind
2013). As long as parents are supportive (i.e., high in the
responsiveness dimension), the degree of demandingness
will have a strong influence on how much parents reinforce
a child’s self-regulation.
Parents who are supportive of their children and have a
demanding parenting style are typically referred to as “au-
thoritative.” These parents are more actively engaged in the
socialization process than less demanding parents, typically
referred to as “permissive” or “neglectful” (Darling and
Steinberg 1993). Parents high in demandingness set strict
behavioral standards for the child and enforce compliance
with the standards through firm and consistent discipline
(Kim, Yang, and Lee 2015). Demanding parents foster the
development of self-regulation (Rodrigo, Janssens, and
Ceballos 1999), inhibiting unwanted behaviors by requiring
“a common nexus of self-regulatory processes, including the
ability to start and stop behavior on the basis of situational
requirements, to postpone the pursuit of a given goal, and to
regulate the intensity of both overt action and affective
arousal” (Maccoby and Martin 1983, 36). Another parenting
style that is high in demandingness is “authoritarian.”
Because these parents are low in responsiveness, however,
this style leads to less development of self-regulation than
an authoritative style (Patock-Peckham and Morgan-Lopez
2006; Spera 2005; Steinberg et al. 1991).
At the other end of the demandingness dimension, per-
missive and neglectful parents tend to be lenient and avoid
confrontation with children. These parents are accepting of
children’s impulses and hesitate to set or enforce rules for
behavior (Baumrind 1991; Maccoby and Martin 1983).
Similar profiles have been used to explain consumer child-
hood socialization, describing how parents restrict their
children’s consumption, regulate the amount of television
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
viewing time, provide lessons about materialism, and influ-
ence attitudes toward advertising (Carlson and Grossbart
1988).
Taken together, these descriptions indicate that parents
share a set of goals they reinforce during the socialization
of their children, and that different parenting styles (i.e.,
demanding, permissive) may determine how much empha-
sis parents put on the child’s self-regulation. We propose a
process we call socialization compensation, whereby the
perceived violation of lessons associated with a goal (e.g.,
low personal control) will trigger a compensatory process
(Heine, Proulx, and Vohs 2006; Kim and Gal 2014). We
discuss this process next.
Socialization Compensation
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Adult consumers have an array of memories of their par-
ents’ style (e.g., demanding, permissive) and the lessons
they learned from their parents growing up (e.g., control the
outcomes of your actions, self-regulate, seek pleasure).
These memories will influence consumers’ beliefs about
their parents’ style and the lessons they learned.
Socialization compensation implies that consumers who ex-
perience a violation of one of these lessons will respond by
engaging in another behavior that they recall learning during
childhood socialization. Because self-regulation “is intri-
cately bound with autonomy and social competence”
(Houck and LeCuyer-Maus 2004, 30), one way to compen-
sate for an experience of low personal control is to engage
in self-regulatory behavior, as long as the consumer believes
this was a lesson she or he learned growing up. For example,
consider situations where consumers have experiences that
are outside of their control, such as having connectivity
problems when trying to make an online purchase or being
placed on hold by the cable company after a complaint
(Cutright and Samper 2014). This lack of control would lead
consumers to exert self-regulation (e.g., buy a utilitarian
product, consume healthy food) during or after the current
episode, especially if these consumers recall their parents as
having a demanding style and therefore believe that a major
lesson emphasized by their parents was self-regulation.
Alternatively, when consumers recall their parents as
having a permissive style, they should not have the same
beliefs about their parents’ emphasis of self-regulation.
Indeed, given that parental permissiveness has been linked
to higher general impulsiveness and excessive drinking
(Patock-Peckham and Morgan-Lopez 2006), children
whose recollections of their parents reflect a permissive
style may not believe that self-regulation was an important
lesson learned during childhood, and they may even be-
lieve their parents more strongly emphasized having fun
and seeking pleasure. Based on the idea of compensation,
these consumers will be less likely to respond to low con-
trol by exerting self-regulation than consumers who recall
their parents as having a more demanding style. Counter to
VANBERGEN AND LARAN
the example discussed earlier, a lack of control would not
lead to an increase in self-regulation, and it could even
lead to an increase in pleasure-seeking behaviors (e.g., buy
a hedonic product, consume tasty food).
The process of socialization compensation is congruent
with research on compensatory control. Having control is a
fundamental human motive (Botti and McGill 2006;
Janoff-Bulman 1992; Kelly 1955), and people may adopt
several strategies when experiencing low personal control.
One strategy is to compensate for the loss of control by en-
dorsing external sources of control, such as religious insti-
tutions (Kay, Moscovitch, and Laurin 2010; Kay et al.
2009; Laurin, Kay, and Moscovitch 2008) and the govern-
ment (Kay and Eibach 2013; Kay et al. 2008; Kay et al.
2010; Shepherd et al. 2011). A second strategy is to seek
structure, patterns, and organization (Friesen et al. 2014),
because a sense of predictability and coherence is comfort-
ing to individuals experiencing low control (Cutright 2012;
Cutright, Bettman, and Fitzsimons 2013; Whitson and
Galinsky 2008). In fact, our predictions that low control
can both increase and decrease self-regulation can be rec-
onciled with previous findings on compensatory control.
Although there is evidence that low control may lead to ef-
fortful behavior (Cutright and Samper 2014) and an in-
creased desire for power (Inesi et al. 2011; Rucker,
Galinsky, and Dubois 2012), there is also evidence that it
can lead to eating disorders (Dalgleish et al. 2001; Polivy
and Herman 2002) and depletion of self-regulatory re-
sources (Chae and Zhu 2014). Across these responses, the
implication is that consumers seek to reestablish control
through an array of different means when their personal
control is threatened. While the idea of compensation is
congruent across the current research and compensatory
control research, our approach differs in that it proposes
that increasing or decreasing self-regulation is not used as
a way to reestablish control. Rather, it is used as a way to
compensate for the lack of consistency with what one be-
lieves they have learned during childhood socialization, in-
dependently of whether or not this behavior will restore
control.
STUDY 1
Study 1 aimed to provide evidence for the prediction
that low personal control increases self-regulation and this
effect is moderated by recollections of childhood socializa-
tion experiences. Our theory predicts that self-regulation
increases as a response to low control due to a perceived
inconsistency between one’s current state relative to what
one believes they learned through socialization. As dis-
cussed earlier, there are differences in parenting styles that
affect the emphasis and development of self-regulation
(Baumrind 1991; Grolnick and Ryan 1989). Therefore,
consumers with different beliefs about their socialization
537
experiences should respond in different ways. For partici-
pants who believe their parents had a more demanding par-
enting style (i.e., were authoritative), their beliefs about
childhood socialization should reflect an emphasis on self-
regulation. As a result, experiencing low control should
lead to an increase in self-regulation. In contrast, for partic-
ipants who believe their parents had a more permissive par-
enting style, their beliefs about childhood socialization
should not reflect an emphasis on self-regulation. As a re-
sult, experiencing low control should not lead to an in-
crease in self-regulation because exerting self-regulation
will not compensate for the socialization violation that the
loss of control creates.
Method
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Participants and Design. A total of 209 undergraduate
business students participated as partial fulfillment of a
course requirement or to earn extra credit. We screened par-
ticipants in this and all subsequent studies to ensure that
questions were read. Specifically, we included two questions
at different points of the study designed to appear similar to
preceding questions, but the body of which informed partici-
pants to select a specific response (e.g., “How happy do you
feel? Actually, please click the number two to show us you
are paying attention;” “My parents spent a lot of time with
me. Actually, please click ‘strongly disagree’ to show us
you are paying attention”). Sixty-six students failed at least
one of these questions, leaving a final sample of 143 (Mage
¼ 19.9 years, 51% female). This procedure was adapted
from that of Oppenheimer, Meyvis, and Davidenko (2009),
which found that 46% (study 1) and 35% (study 2) of partic-
ipants failed this type of attention measure. While results in
all studies are similar before and after eliminating partici-
pants who did not pass the attention check, we report only
the results with exclusion criteria applied in the subsequent
studies because this rule had been determined prior to data
collection. The study manipulated one between-subject fac-
tor (personal control: low vs. high) and used a continuous
measure of beliefs about parenting style.
Procedure. The first task manipulated personal control
by randomly assigning participants to one of two writing
tasks. In the high (low) control condition, we asked partici-
pants to write about something that happened to them that
was completely under (out of) their control. Participants
were asked to focus on the ways their behavior and choices
were (were not) able to play a role in the outcomes they ex-
perienced. This manipulation is modeled after similar ma-
nipulations of personal control asking participants to write
about an experience that was (vs. was not) under one’s con-
trol (Cutright and Samper 2014; Kay et al. 2008). After
completing this task, we directed participants to the depen-
dent measure, disguised as a study about learning from on-
line videos. We informed participants that they would be
538
asked to watch a how-to video and would have the oppor-
tunity to snack on potato chips while watching the video.
Specifically, we provided participants with a bag contain-
ing 20 Pringles potato chips and informed them that they
could snack on the chips while watching the video, which
lasted approximately four minutes. After the video, par-
ticipants were instructed to hand the remaining potato
chips back to the lab administrator. As consumption of
unhealthy foods such as potato chips is a widely used
measure of self-regulation (Geyskens et al. 2008; Salerno,
Laran, and Janiszewski 2014; Tice, Bratslavsky, and
Baumeister 2001; Tuk, Zhang, and Sweldens 2015), our
dependent measure was the number of potato chips left
uneaten (i.e., eating fewer chips implies greater self-
regulation).
After watching the video, participants responded to a
manipulation check for personal control asking them to
think back to the writing task and indicate how much con-
trol they felt they had over the experiences they wrote
about (“How much control did you feel you had over the
event(s) you wrote about?” 1 ¼ Very little control; 7 ¼ A
great deal of control). Participants also responded to demo-
graphic questions and a measure of depletion (personal
control did not affect depletion; t < 1). Participants then re-
sponded to a measure of their beliefs about their parents’
style (see all items in Buri 1991). This scale comprises
three 10 item subscales tapping the extent to which an indi-
vidual’s parents are believed to fall under Baumrind’s
(1971) permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian parent-
ing styles. While the literature finds most differences on
the reinforcement of self-regulation with regard to permis-
sive versus authoritative styles (Patock-Peckham and
Morgan-Lopez 2006; Spera 2005), we also included the
measure of an authoritarian style, which is less comparable
because it is low on parental support, for completion. This
style, however, did not produce differences across the low
and high control conditions (t < 1; p > .55). We asked par-
ticipants to which extent they agreed or disagreed with
each item as applied to them and their parents during their
years of growing up at home. As examples, the permissive
scale includes items such as “My parents did not view
themselves as responsible for directing and guiding my be-
havior as I was growing up,” and the authoritative subscale
includes items such as “As I was growing up my parents
directed the activities and decisions of the children in the
family through reasoning and discipline,” (1 ¼ Strongly
disagree; 7 ¼ Strongly agree). Participants were then de-
briefed and thanked for their participation.
Results
Manipulation Check. An analysis of variance
(ANOVA) on responses to the manipulation check for per-
sonal control showed that participants in the low personal
control condition (M ¼ 1.96, SD ¼ 1.27) reported
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
significantly lower control than participants in the high
personal control condition (M ¼ 5.92, SD ¼ 1.11; F(1,
141) ¼ 385.53, p < .01).
Self-Regulation. To obtain a measure of the extent to
which participants believed that they were raised under a
more demanding parenting style, we computed an index
based on the difference between participants’ average au-
thoritativeness ratings and average permissiveness ratings.
In the analyses that follow, positive scores indicate more
authoritative than permissive parenting (M ¼ 1.56,
SD ¼ 1.26). To test whether the effect of low personal con-
trol on self-regulation depends on the extent to which par-
ticipants believe their parents were more authoritative
versus permissive, we regressed the number of potato chips
left uneaten on the personal control condition to which par-
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ticipants were assigned, the parenting style belief index,
and their interaction.
Results revealed only an interaction of personal control
and parenting style (b ¼ 1.58, t(139) ¼ 2.09, p ¼ .04;
figure 1). We probed this interaction through floodlight
analysis (Spiller et al. 2013), which tests the simple effect
of a dichotomous variable across the range of a continuous
moderator. This analysis revealed that the effect of per-
sonal control was negative and significant at or above 3.85
on the parenting style belief index (b ¼ 3.87, t(139) ¼
1.96, p ¼ .05), indicating that participants who believed
their parents were more demanding (vs. permissive) re-
sponded to low personal control by increasing self-
regulation (i.e., they left more chips uneaten). However,
when participants believed they had more permissive par-
ents (i.e., low levels on the index), low personal control
was associated with decreased self-regulation (i.e., they
left fewer chips uneaten), but this effect was nonsignificant
at various points of the index. It did, however, become
marginally significant at the lowest level of the index for
FIGURE 1
INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL CONTROL AND BELIEFS ABOUT
PARENTING STYLE ON SELF-REGULATION (STUDY 1)
15
14
Number of Remaining Chips
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
Low Control
6
High Control
5
More Permissive Parents More Demanding Parents
VANBERGEN AND LARAN
this sample, which was 1.80 (b ¼ 5.05, t(139) ¼ 1.87,
p ¼ .06).
Discussion
Study 1 provides initial evidence that low control may
increase self-regulation and this effect may be due to a
willingness to compensate for the perceived violation of
socialization experiences that low control represents.
When participants believed they had demanding (i.e., au-
thoritative) parents, they responded to low personal control
by increasing self-regulation. However, when participants
believed they had more permissive parents, the effect of
low control on self-regulation was attenuated. Thus, the re-
sponse to low personal control was consistent with the
style of parenting participants recalled experiencing during
their childhood socialization, which emphasize self-
regulation to different degrees.
A potential limitation of this study is that, even though
our procedure included intervening questions between the
measure of self-regulation and the parenting style scale,
participants experiencing low personal control and who ex-
erted self-regulation reported their parents as more de-
manding, potentially to help justify their behavior. In the
high control condition, participants would not have felt a
need to justify their behavior. Therefore, in study 2, we fur-
ther explore the role of consumers’ beliefs about socializa-
tion by specifically examining the lessons consumers recall
learning from their parents and including a filler task be-
tween the self-regulation measure and the measure of
childhood lessons.
STUDY 2
Another way to provide evidence for the role of sociali-
zation beliefs is to directly examine how differences in the
extent to which individuals believe their parents empha-
sized self-regulation lead to different patterns of behavior
as a response to low personal control. Given that low con-
trol motivates consumers to regain consistency with the
lessons they believe were emphasized during childhood so-
cialization, self-regulation should only increase in response
to low control if individuals believe their parents empha-
sized self-regulation. For consumers who do not believe
they learned as much from their parents about self-
regulation, low control could instead lead to a decrease in
self-regulation.
Method
Participants and Design. A total of 282 undergraduate
business students participated as partial fulfillment of a
course requirement. Sixteen participants failed the atten-
tion check described in study 1, leaving a final sample of
539
266 (Mage ¼ 20.2 years; 63.2% female). The study manipu-
lated one factor at two different levels (personal control:
low vs. high) and had a continuous measure of beliefs
about parental emphasis on self-regulation.
Procedure. Participants first completed a “Positive
Memories Task” that involved writing about something
positive that happened because of something they did (i.e.,
something they had control over) or did not do (i.e., some-
thing they did not have control over). This task has been
shown to influence feelings of personal control without
influencing participants’ mood (Cutright 2012; Kay et al.
2008). After completing this task, participants were told
that, as a thank-you gift for participating in the study, they
would be offered a choice between a Nature Valley granola
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bar and a pack of Oreo cookies, similar to measures of
self-regulation used in previous research (Kivetz and
Keinan 2006; Laran, Janiszewski, and Salerno 2016;
Salerno, Laran, and Janiszewski 2015). In a pretest (N ¼
81), participants were asked on a 7 point scale how much
self-regulation choosing one snack over the other would re-
quire. The granola bar was associated with more self-
regulation (M ¼ 4.19, SD ¼ 1.90) than the Oreos (M ¼
3.15, SD ¼ 1.98; F(1,80) ¼ 14.8, p < .01). After making
their choice, participants responded to the manipulation
check, which asked how much control they felt they had
over the event they wrote about in the Positive Memories
task (1 ¼ Very little control; 7 ¼ A great deal of control),
and a filler task composed of an unrelated study run by
other faculty at the university.
After the filler task, participants completed the measure
tapping the extent to which they believed their parents em-
phasized self-regulation. This measure was adapted from
the widely used trait self-regulation scale (Tangney,
Baumeister, and Boone 2004), and it aimed to examine be-
liefs about self-regulation as taught by each participant’s
parents: “Think back to when you were a child and the
things your parents taught you. Please indicate the extent
to which your parents taught you each of the following les-
sons when you were growing up” (1 ¼ Not at all; 5 ¼ Very
much). They then responded to 9 items (not all 13 of
Tangney et al.’s items lent themselves to adaptation) tap-
ping the extent to which parents had taught self-regulation
(e.g., “it is important to resist temptation,” “you must be
able to work effectively toward long-term goals,” and
“pleasure and fun will sometimes keep you from getting
work done, and that’s okay” [reverse coded]; the appendix
lists all 9 adapted items). Responses were averaged to form
a composite measure of the extent to which participants be-
lieved their parents taught self-regulation (vs. pleasure).
After participants completed these items, they responded to
demographic questions, were thanked for their time, and
received their choice of the granola bar or Oreos.
540
Results
Manipulation Check. Participants perceived they had
significantly more control in the high (M ¼ 5.75,
SD ¼ 1.17) compared to the low personal control condition
(M ¼ 2.94, SD ¼ 1.87, F(1, 264) ¼ 217.81, p < .01).
Self-Regulation. We regressed participants’ choice of
Oreos (coded 0) versus granola bar (coded 1) onto a
dummy-coded variable indicating the personal control con-
dition (0 ¼ low control; 1 ¼ high control), an average of
the nine adapted self-regulation items (M ¼ 3.62,
SD ¼ 0.57), and their interaction; variables were mean cen-
tered prior to analysis. We ran binary logistic regressions
using Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS macro (model 1), which
accommodates binary dependent measures and provides
simple effects via floodlight analysis.
Results revealed only an interaction of personal control
and beliefs about parental emphasis on self-regulation (b ¼
1.10, Z ¼ 2.46, p ¼ .01; figure 2). Floodlight analysis
revealed that the effect of personal control was negative
and significant at or above 4.21 on the emphasis on self-
regulation scale (b ¼ .72, Z ¼ 1.96, p ¼ .05), indicating
that participants who believed their parents emphasized
self-regulation responded to low personal control by in-
creasing self-regulation (i.e., they were more likely to
choose the granola bar). In contrast, when participants did
not believe their parents emphasized self-regulation as
much as seeking pleasure (at or below 2.73 on the empha-
sis on self-regulation scale), low personal control was asso-
ciated with decreased self-regulation (i.e., they were more
likely to choose Oreos; b ¼ .92, Z ¼ 1.96, p ¼ .05).
Looked at differently, when participants were in the low
control condition, as beliefs about parents’ emphasis on
self-regulation increased they were marginally more likely
to choose the granola bar (b ¼ .54, Z ¼ 1.73, p ¼ .08). The
opposite pattern was observed in the high control condition
(b ¼ .56, Z ¼ 1.75, p ¼ .08).
Trait Self-Regulation. It may be possible that our
adapted self-regulation items are actually tapping individ-
uals’ beliefs about their current trait levels of self-
regulation, rather than what their parents taught them. At
the beginning of each semester, students in our participant
pool take a survey composed of common individual differ-
ence measures including trait self-regulation (Tangney
et al. 2004). This allows researchers to match students’
data from the studies run later in the semester to their pre-
semester data through students’ unique lab identification
numbers. Having these data available, we used them to test
whether a similar pattern of results would be obtained
when trait self-regulation, instead of beliefs about parental
emphasis on self-regulation, was entered as a moderator in
the analysis. As expected, trait self-regulation and parents’
emphasis were positively correlated (r ¼ .18, p < .01).
Nevertheless, when trait self-regulation was entered in the
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
FIGURE 2
INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL CONTROL AND BELIEFS ABOUT
SELF-REGULATORY EMPHASIS FROM PARENTS ON SELF-
REGULATION (STUDY 2)
0.70
Probability of Choosing Granola Bar
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10 Low Control
High Control
0.00
Low Self-Regulaon Emphasis High Self-Regulaon Emphasis
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logistic regression model predicting choice, results re-
vealed no significant main effects or interactions (p’s >
.53). We also entered trait self-regulation as a covariate in
the analysis predicting choice with parents’ emphasis on
self-regulation. Trait self-regulation was not a significant
covariate (p > .80), and the interaction of personal control
and parents’ emphasis remained significant (p ¼ .02).
These analyses suggest that it is perceptions of what a con-
sumer was taught by parents when growing up, rather than
one’s level of self-regulatory capacity as an adult, that pre-
dicts responses to low control.
Discussion
Study 2 provides additional support to our prediction
that when people experience low personal control, they
tend to exert more self-regulation. This effect, however,
did not occur for people who believe their parents were
very low on the extent to which they emphasized self-
regulation. Consistent with our theory, when participants
believed their parents deemphasized self-regulation,
experiencing low control was less likely to lead to in-
creased self-regulation, and even reduced self-regulation
for participants whose beliefs reflected greater emphasis
on seeking pleasure than self-regulation.
According to our theory, socialization compensation is
driven by resolving the perceived inconsistency with child-
hood socialization that experiencing low control induces.
Thus, consumers’ recollections and beliefs about the les-
sons emphasized during childhood determine whether self-
regulation increases after experiencing low personal con-
trol. Given that both study 1 and study 2 measured beliefs
about socialization experiences, in study 3 we examine the
malleability of these socialization beliefs in influencing
self-regulation. We test whether temporary beliefs about
VANBERGEN AND LARAN
what parents teach their children also influence a con-
sumer’s response to low control.
STUDY 3
In studies 1 and 2, we showed that variance in the extent
to which an individual believes their parents emphasized
self-regulation during childhood moderates the effect of
low personal control on self-regulation. Given the span of
childhood socialization and the variety of parent–child in-
teractions that occur over its course, it may also be possible
to manipulate beliefs about the importance of self-
regulation during a consumer’s childhood experiences.
That is, highlighting the idea that exerting self-regulation
or seeking pleasure is an important lesson that parents
teach children may temporarily make one type of lesson
more salient and influence beliefs about the importance of
these lessons in one’s childhood. As a result, consumers
who are led to believe self-regulation is an important child-
hood lesson should show increased self-regulation when
experiencing low control, but not when experiencing high
control. Alternatively, consumers who are led to believe
pleasure seeking is an important childhood lesson should
show decreased self-regulation when experiencing low
control, but not when experiencing high control.
Method
Participants and Design. A total of 140 undergraduate
students participated in exchange for extra credit or partial
fulfillment of course credit. Eleven participants failed the
attention check, leaving a final sample of 129 participants
(Mage ¼ 20.7 years; 58.6% female). The design was a 2
(personal control: low versus high)  2 (beliefs about so-
cialization emphasis: self-regulation versus seeking plea-
sure) between-subjects design.
Procedure. To manipulate control, we used the same
manipulation as in study 1. Participants were then directed
to the socialization beliefs manipulation, disguised as a test
of reading comprehension. In both socialization conditions,
they read a brief excerpt ostensibly taken from a press re-
lease describing recent research in developmental psychol-
ogy suggesting that nearly all parents teach their children
to behave in certain ways. Participants assigned to the self-
regulation socialization condition read a passage titled
“Parents Teach Children the Value of Self-Control” while
those assigned to the pleasure-seeking socialization condi-
tion read a passage titled “Parents Teach Children the
Value of Happiness and Pleasure.” In the self-regulation
socialization condition, parents ostensibly taught children
about “seeking what is most responsible to do when they
need to” by “making choices that will benefit them in the
future.” In the pleasure-seeking socialization condition,
parents ostensibly taught children about “seeking what is
541
most pleasurable to do when they want to” by “making
choices that will make them happy.” Note that the manipu-
lation did not tell participants that parents do not teach
their children to self-regulate, but instead it just highlighted
that parents purportedly also teach their children the value
of pleasure. To increase the strength of the manipulation,
we also used terminology emphasizing the consistency be-
tween the press release and participants’ experiences (e.g.,
“Did your parents teach you about the importance of plea-
sure and fun? They probably did”) and emphasized the
generality of the finding described in the press release (the
appendix provides the full texts).
After reading the passage, participants were directed to
the same dependent measure used in study 1, involving
consumption of potato chips while watching a video. Once
participants finished the online videos task, we adminis-
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tered manipulation checks for the personal control and so-
cialization manipulations. For the former, we asked
participants to think back to the writing task and indicate
the level of control they felt they had over the experience
they described (1 ¼ Very little control; 7 ¼ A great deal of
control). To test whether the socialization manipulation
successfully highlighted different beliefs about socializa-
tion, we asked participants, “Is it more important for par-
ents to teach their children the value of pleasure and fun or
to teach children the value of self-control” (1 ¼ Pleasure
and fun; 7 ¼ Self-control). We also asked whether partici-
pants believed the findings described in the article were
true (1 ¼ Not at all; 7 ¼ Absolutely). Participants were
then debriefed and thanked for their time on the study.
Results
Manipulation Checks. Participants in the high control
condition (M ¼ 5.28, SD ¼ 1.56) reported significantly
more control than did participants in the low control condi-
tion (M ¼ 2.23, SD ¼ 1.68; F(1, 125) ¼ 110.36, p < .01).
An ANOVA on the socialization manipulation check
showed only an effect of the socialization beliefs manipu-
lation (F(1, 125) ¼ 32.50, p < .01), such that participants
in the self-regulation socialization condition (M ¼ 5.08,
SD ¼ 1.38) believed it is more important for parents to
teach children self-regulation than did participants in the
pleasure-seeking socialization condition (M ¼ 3.44,
SD ¼ 1.81). Note that the mean for the self-regulation so-
cialization condition is significantly higher than the mid-
point of the scale (i.e., 4; t(60) ¼ 6.12, p < .01), and the
mean for the pleasure-seeking socialization condition is
significantly below the midpoint of the scale (t(67) ¼
2.55, p ¼ .01), indicating that the reading task success-
fully shifted beliefs in both conditions. The means of the
question asking whether participants believed the findings
to be true were above the midpoint of the scale both in the
self-regulation (M ¼ 5.00, SD ¼ 1.29; t(60) ¼ 6.05, p < .01)
542
and in the pleasure-seeking condition (M ¼ 4.66, SD ¼
1.35; t(67) ¼ 4.06, p < .01).
Self-Regulation. An ANOVA on the number of chips
remaining after watching the video revealed only an inter-
action between the personal control and socialization fac-
tors (F(1, 125) ¼ 6.66, p ¼ .01; figure 3). In the self-
regulation socialization belief condition, individuals left
more chips uneaten in the low control condition (M ¼
10.28, SD ¼ 5.45), indicating marginally more self-
regulation compared to the high control condition (M ¼
7.48, SD ¼ 6.60; F(1, 125) ¼ 3.61, p ¼ .06). In the plea-
sure-seeking socialization belief condition, individuals left
fewer chips uneaten in the low control condition (M ¼
8.11, SD ¼ 5.87), indicating marginally less self-regulation
compared to the high control condition (M ¼ 10.55,
SD ¼ 4.97; F(1, 125) ¼ 3.05, p ¼ .08).
Discussion
The results of study 3 suggest that highlighting different
aspects of what parents teach their children influences self-
regulatory behavior under conditions of low control. When
we encouraged participants to believe that parents teach
children about self-regulation, experiencing low personal
control led to decreased consumption of potato chips, indi-
cating greater self-regulation. However, when participants
were led to believe that most parents teach children the im-
portance of pleasure and fun, participants in the low per-
sonal control condition ate more potato chips, indicating
decreased self-regulation. These results build on the results
of studies 1 and 2 by demonstrating that contextual infor-
mation about childhood socialization lessons may be used
to influence currently held beliefs about childhood sociali-
zation, therefore influencing consumers’ behavior when
they experience low control.
FIGURE 3
INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL CONTROL AND MANIPULATED
BELIEFS ABOUT SELF-REGULATORY EMPHASIS FROM
PARENTS ON SELF-REGULATION (STUDY 3)
14
Low Control
High Control
12
Number of Remaining Chips
10
8
6 perceived inconsistencies with childhood socialization.
4
2
0 experiences a consumer had during childhood.
Pleasure Seeking Emphasis
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
GENERAL DISCUSSION
This research reveals a novel mechanism activated by
low personal control. This mechanism is the product of
learning about personal control during childhood socializa-
tion and is driven by the motivation to compensate for the
deficit that experiencing low control causes relative to
what one believes they have learned during childhood so-
cialization. Our studies show that consumers engage in
self-regulation when facing this inconsistency (studies 1–
3). This tendency is attenuated for consumers who believe
their parents were more permissive (study 1), and it re-
verses for consumers who believe their parents did not em-
phasize self-regulation (study 2) or are led to believe that
pleasure seeking is an important aspect of childhood so-
cialization (study 3).
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Implications
Our research contributes to the literatures on personal
control and self-regulation. First, while extant research
suggests that individuals are driven to regain control when
personal control is threatened (Kay and Eibach 2013), our
studies show that this is not the only consequence of low
personal control. Behavior following a loss of personal
control may also be directed at maintaining consistency
with the lessons consumers associate with childhood so-
cialization because low control is inconsistent with these
lessons. This implies that research on personal control may
want to adopt a broader view of the processes driving be-
havior following a loss of control. Although alternative
sources of control certainly compensate for low control
and influence subsequent behavior, we show that beliefs
about childhood socialization may in fact drive this behav-
ior. This may also help explain why individuals are so
averse to viewing the world as random or meaningless—
they are taught from a young age to believe just the
opposite.
Second, our research contributes to the literature on self-
regulation by relating regulatory behavior to one’s current
level of personal control. Given the range of contexts that
threaten consumers’ feelings of control and the ubiquity of
situations requiring self-regulation, understanding how and
why personal control influences self-regulation is an im-
portant advancement to both streams of research. In a
broad sense, our findings imply that self-regulation may be
exerted in the service of a general goal to compensate for
This insight builds upon previous research on factors that
increase or decrease self-regulation (Laran 2010a, 2010b)
by showing that self-regulation is fundamentally linked to
Self-Regulaon Emphasis Documenting these links will help us understand additional
contexts that make self-regulation more or less likely.
VANBERGEN AND LARAN
Additional evidence we obtained, described in the online
appendix, further explores this link. Consumers use self-
regulation to resolve the inconsistency induced by low
personal control because lessons about self-regulation and
personal control are learned in similar ways. This makes
self-regulation an accessible compensatory mechanism for
consumers who believe their parents emphasized self-
regulation. For example, the developmental literature indi-
cates that parents allow children more personal control as
they age (Carrasco et al. 2011; Roberts et al. 1984), a
trajectory that self-regulatory instruction also follows. In
support of this link between personal control and self-
regulation, Gralinski and Kopp (1993) discuss how adept
parents are at using their children’s behavioral capacity
(e.g., for self-regulation) to inform the level of restriction
over children’s behavior. They write that the rules mothers
set for their children “impressively dovetail” with chil-
dren’s capacity to understand and control their behavior
(582). Our conceptualization suggests that this link leads
consumers to use self-regulation as a way to compensate
for low personal control. In the two studies reported in the
online appendix, we measured the extent to which partici-
pants believed their parents considered their self-regulatory
abilities when deciding how much control they gave to
their children (i.e., whether control was dependent on one’s
use of this control to self-regulate). Results from two dif-
ferent populations (i.e., Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
[MTurk] respondents, N ¼ 100; undergraduate partici-
pants, N ¼ 158) and two dependent measures (intertempo-
ral choices with the possibility of actual winnings;
consumption of M&Ms) showed significant interactions
(p’s < .05) between personal control and whether partici-
pants believed their parents only afforded them control
when they knew their children would be able to exert self-
regulatory behavior. The effect of low control on self-
regulation was only obtained when a perceived relationship
between personal control and self-regulation was present,
and it disappeared when participants believed their parents
afforded personal control independently of whether they
would be able to exert self-regulatory behavior. This indi-
cates that increased self-regulation after experiencing low
control depends on a perceived link between control and
self-regulation during one’s childhood.
Our findings also have implications for consumers and
practitioners. It may be possible to benefit consumers by
applying our findings to contexts requiring self-regulation.
As examples, a gym that restricts consumers’ personal con-
trol by requiring exercises to be done in a specific order
may make people work out longer, and a dieting program
that reduces control with a preset menu may help individ-
uals refrain from cheating. In addition, consumers may
benefit from products and services that rely on self-
regulatory behavior (e.g., self-taught foreign language
courses, weight loss programs) and are advertised in a way
that references inconsistency with childhood socialization
543
(e.g., “What did your mom say about eating your vegeta-
bles?”), particularly when applied to settings in which con-
sumers have little personal control (e.g., public
transportation in rush hour).
The results of study 3, showing that external information
can shift consumers’ beliefs about childhood socialization,
also suggest several implications. For example, marketers
may have more control over consumers’ responses to a
wide range of products and services that rely on self-
regulation or encourage pleasure seeking by considering
the extent to which promotional materials reference the so-
cialization of these behaviors. Similarly, policymakers
could use this knowledge by ensuring that consumers’ be-
liefs about childhood lessons are not influenced by market-
ing communications, which could interfere with their
ability to self-regulate.
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Given that the consumption environment is full of expe-
riences that defy socialization’s lessons, this research sug-
gests that many consumption contexts may be impacted by
perceived socialization deficits. For example, many fea-
tures of online or in-store retail environments restrict per-
sonal control (e.g., Internet connectivity problems, in-store
crowding, stockouts). Future research could examine the
extent to which self-regulation is affected when specific
types of marketing contexts threaten personal control.
Other violations of lessons associated with childhood so-
cialization (e.g., resolving conflicts aggressively) may also
influence subsequent behavior. For example, our account
predicts that a consumer who has a disagreement at work
and behaves aggressively would make more regulated
choices when going grocery shopping later because the ag-
gressive behavior likely violates what the consumer’s par-
ents taught them about social relationships during
childhood socialization (Maccoby and Martin 1983). Of
course, this prediction is inconsistent with those of other
lines of research (e.g., negative mood resulting from con-
flict could lead to less regulated choices), an issue that
could be investigated in the future.
An additional domain informed by our results is materi-
alism. Work in consumer socialization has examined the
development and drivers of materialism (John 1999;
Richins and Chaplin 2015) and the role that parents play in
this development. John (1999) discusses how children’s
materialistic behaviors become more sophisticated as they
age and are shaped by family communication styles
(Moore and Moschis 1981; Moschis and Moore 1979).
Similarly, Richins and Chaplin (2015; study 3) provide evi-
dence for why parenting practices during childhood be-
come associated with adult consumers’ materialism.
Findings indicate that receiving material rewards as chil-
dren increases adult consumers’ beliefs that material goods
are an important way to express and transform one’s iden-
tity, which has implications for consumer research.
Specifically, when considered alongside the present find-
ings, this suggests that consumers may engage in
544
materialistic behaviors when facing a socialization deficit
if they recall receiving material rewards as children.
Researchers could examine (1) other features of childhood
socialization that can be detected in adult consumers, and
(2) which types of socialized behaviors are most likely to
be recruited when another aspect of socialization is
threatened.
Future Research Implications
The findings suggest several avenues for future research.
For example, while we did not find an effect of socioeco-
nomic status on self-regulation, which was measured in
both studies we report in the online appendix, juxtaposing
our findings against recent work by Mittal and
Griskevicius (2014) leads to intriguing possibilities about
the interactions between childhood socioeconomic status
and (the sources of) feeling low personal control. Mittal
and Griskevicius (2014) showed that individuals from
poorer backgrounds behave impulsively when experienc-
ing environmental uncertainty. While uncertainty is part
of, but not the same as, low control (i.e., control is broader
in that it involves establishing relationships between ac-
tions and outcomes), the compensation process activated
after a loss of control may depend on the source of the con-
trol threat. When generic sources threaten personal control,
our results suggest that socialization compensation will be
activated and self-regulation will increase. However, when
personal control is threatened by economic sources, indi-
viduals from different economic backgrounds may react
differently, such that low childhood socioeconomic status
individuals will behave more impulsively. Testing these
predictions would be an interesting follow-up to the pre-
sent research.
While our investigation focused on early childhood so-
cialization and the primary role that parents play (Maccoby
1992), the process of socialization continues throughout
life and involves other actors (e.g., peers, teachers, the
mass media; Beaudoin 2014; Grusec 2011; Maccoby and
Martin 1983). This raises intriguing questions. For in-
stance, to what extent can lessons learned from other so-
cialization agents be recruited for behavior following a
violation of socialization? Given that the socialization
compensation process is driven by individuals’ beliefs
about childhood socialization, it would be interesting to ex-
amine whether beliefs relating to different points of the so-
cialization process influence compensatory behavior to the
same degree. Future research could address this question
by examining the extent to which behavior consistent with
aspects of socialization learned later in life (e.g., seeking
romantic involvement, an important aspect of adolescent
socialization; Aikins, Simon, and Prinstein 2010) can com-
pensate for the lessons learned during early childhood.
Another important direction for future research is to fur-
ther explore the relationships between actual childhood
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
socialization experiences and beliefs about childhood so-
cialization. Given that we were able to manipulate momen-
tary beliefs in study 3, it seems that beliefs about what one
has learned as a child can actually be more important than
firsthand experiences. Longitudinal research investigating
(1) people’s actual experiences growing up, (2) how per-
ceptions of childhood socialization experiences change
over time, (3) the malleability of various beliefs about
childhood, and (4) the explanatory power of beliefs versus
actual experiences in various circumstances would thus
make a valuable contribution to the consumer psychology
literature. Relatedly, one potential limitation of the studies
described earlier is reliance on undergraduate populations.
Thus, the replication of findings with a more diverse and
representative sample would suggest that this effect is not
restricted to participants who are relatively young and
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closer in time to their childhood. To this end, we tested
whether the effect of personal control on self-regulation
was affected by participants’ age in the study using MTurk
respondents (Mage ¼ 34 years), described in the online ap-
pendix. Age was not a significant covariate (p > .62), and
the interaction of personal control and the perceived link
between control and self-regulation remained significant
when controlling for age (p < .05). In addition, age did not
moderate the two-way interaction of personal control and
the perceived link (p > .74).
Future research could also examine the factors that de-
termine when individuals are more versus less likely to
cope with violations of childhood socialization as predicted
by our theory. For example, an interesting application of
this theory would examine how current parents, especially
those who engage in different parenting strategies than the
strategies used by their own parents, behave when a lesson
from childhood is violated. Imagine a parent whose recol-
lection of their own parents suggests an authoritative style
but takes a more permissive approach with her own chil-
dren, not emphasizing self-regulation as much. Under what
circumstances will this individual react to a violation of
childhood socialization by following their current beliefs
about what is important to teach children versus by follow-
ing what they recall learning during childhood? A general
understanding of how and when the childhood (vs. adult)
version of one’s self determines current behavior is an ex-
citing area of future research that deserves further
investigation.
Conclusion
In addition to the specific directions for future research
just suggested, this work suggests a more general direction
whereby theories from distal but related fields are incorpo-
rated in our study of consumer behavior. While consumer
research has not put much emphasis on consumers’ forma-
tive years, childhood socialization has a powerful and di-
verse impact on an array of adult behaviors (Maccoby
VANBERGEN AND LARAN
1992), from romantic relationships (Sroufe and Fleener
1986) to political attitudes (Healy and Malhotra 2013). We
hope this research motivates other researchers to consider
the impact of childhood socialization and other aspects of
childhood development in theories of consumer behavior.
Great progress in consumer research has been made by ap-
plying theories from diverse fields to the investigation of
consumers. We hope the application of developmental the-
ories to adult consumption behavior will also yield impor-
tant insights.
DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION
Data for each study were collected by research assistants
at the University of Miami Marketing Behavioral
Laboratory, under the supervision of both authors. Data for
study 1 were collected in the spring of 2016. Data for stud-
ies 2 and 3 were collected in the fall of 2015. The first au-
thor was primarily responsible for the data analysis of each
study, under the guidance of the second author.
APPENDIX
SELF-REGULATION EMPHASIS ITEMS
(STUDY 2)
Participants were asked to indicate the extent to which
parents taught each of the following lessons when they
were growing up (1 ¼ Not at all; 5 ¼ Very much); * ¼ re-
verse coded.
- It is important to resist temptation.
- It’s okay to be lazy sometimes.*
- One should never say inappropriate things.
- From time to time, you can do certain things that are
bad for you, if they are fun.*
- You must always refuse things that are bad for you.
- People should know that you have great self-
discipline.
- Pleasure and fun will sometimes keep you from get-
ting work done, and that’s okay.*
- You must be able to work effectively toward long-
term goals.
- Never act without thinking through all the
alternatives.
SOCIALIZATION EMPHASIS
MANIPULATIONS (STUDY 3)
Self-Regulation Socialization Condition:
Parents Teach Children the Value of Self-Control
Did your parents teach you about the importance of self-
control? They probably did. Recent research by develop-
mental psychologists at the University of Oxford suggests
545
that one of the most important things that parents teach
their children is to behave in ways that promote well-
being. In fact, following several nationwide studies
(Rodrigo et al. 2014), researchers concluded that nearly all
parents and caregivers teach their children about seeking
what is most responsible to do when they need to. Just by
interacting with children—at mealtimes, while teaching
new words, even during playtime—concepts relating to
self-control are automatically taught by parents and learned
by children. In conclusion, this research provides evidence
that parents teach young children the importance of making
choices that will benefit them in the future.
Pleasure-Seeking Socialization Condition:
Parents Teach Children the Value of Happiness and Pleasure
Did your parents teach you about the importance of plea-
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sure and fun? They probably did. Recent research by devel-
opmental psychologists at the University of Oxford
suggests that one of the most important things that parents
teach their children is to behave in ways that promote hap-
piness. In fact, following several nationwide studies
(Rodrigo et al. 2014), researchers concluded that nearly all
parents and caregivers teach their children about seeking
what is most pleasurable to do when they want to. Just by
interacting with children—at mealtimes, during playtime,
even while teaching new words—concepts relating to plea-
sure are automatically taught by parents and learned by
children. In conclusion, this research provides evidence
that parents teach young children the importance of making
choices that will make them happy.
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