This research adds to the growing body of literature in consumer socialization by examining intergenerational influence on brand preferences and consumption orientations in parents and young-adult offspring. Two factors suggested in past research to affect intergenerational influence are investigated: conformity to peers and communication effectiveness. A new rigorous method is introduced to demonstrate intergenerational similarity in mother/daughter dyads, distinct from an incipient level of similarity that may occur by chance. Results indicate that communication effectiveness is positively related to intergenerational agreement in all six consumption domains studied, whereas daughter's conformity motivation is related only to prestige sensitivity. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Intergenerational research on sustainable consumption remains scarce, particularly in relation to which factors may affect the level of intergenerational similarity and the direction of intergenerational transmission. The present study addresses these gaps and adds to the growing body of literature in environmental consumer socialization by examining intergenerational influence on sustainable consumer attitudes and behaviors in a sample of 146 dyads comprised of mothers and college‐age daughters. In the domain of intergenerational influence, we study two potential moderating factors suggested in past consumer research: communication effectiveness and peer conformity. Using the co‐orientational model and nominal dyad method, we reveal the existence of intergenerational similarity in dyads' sustainable consumer attitudes and behaviors—after accounting for nominal effects— and show that stronger parent–child communication between mother–daughter pairs leads to greater intergenerational similarity, whereas stronger peer influence on daughters reduces intergenerational agreement. Our analysis further suggests the presence of reverse environmental socialization, in which intergenerational influence predominantly occurs from daughter to mother. Dyads' subjective knowledge regarding sustainable consumption provides empirical insights for this co‐orientational model finding on reverse intergenerational transfer. Overall, outcomes of this study encourage marketing managers to leverage young‐adult offspring in the process of communicating sustainable marketing strategies.

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Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the intergenerational influence across dyads of mothers and daughters from the USA and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with a particular interest in discovering the cross-national differences in terms of the level of mother–daughter brand preference agreement, the directional influence from daughter to mother and leading factors for the observed differences. Design/methodology/approach Using a parallel survey method, responses were obtained regarding participants’ brand preferences, as well as their perceptions of their dyad partners’ preferences, for 20 product categories. A total of 76 dyads in the USA and 114 dyads in the PRC were collected. Findings Results not only confirmed the existence of intergenerational influence in mother–daughter dyads’ brand preferences after removing the nominal bias that previous studies commonly suffered but also suggested two interesting cross-national differences. Specifically, the authors find that US mother–daughter dyads possess a higher level of brand preference agreement than their PRC counterparts; however, the influence from daughters to mothers in the PRC is greater than in the USA. The authors further find that two potential leading factors contribute to the observed cross-national differences; mother–daughter communication is stronger but less influential in the USA than in the PRC, while children’s peer influence, measured as information influence of peers, is weaker but more influential in the USA than in the PRC. Research limitations/implications Understanding intergeneration influences in different cultural contexts may be applicable in developing communication strategies leading to brand preference. Originality/value This study contributes to the consumer socialization literature by examining the cross-national differences of intergenerational influence in brand preferences and their leading causes of such differences in the context of the two biggest economies.

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