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We examine age differences in materialism with children and adolescents 8-18 years old. In study 1, we find materialism increases from middle childhood to early adolescence and declines from early to late adolescence. Further, we find that age differences are mediated by changes in self-esteem occurring from middle childhood through adolescence. In study 2, we prime self-esteem to obtain further evidence of a causal link between self-esteem and materialism. As expected, we find that inducing high self-esteem decreases expressions of materialism. Inducing high self-esteem reduces materialism among adolescents so dramatically that age differences in materialism disappear.Contemporary American tweens and teens have emerged as the most brand-oriented, consumer-involved, and materialistic generation in history. And they top the list globally. . . . More children here than anywhere else believe that their clothes and brands describe who they are and define their social status. (Schor 2004, 13) C oncerns over the rising level of materialism in children and adolescents are increasing among parents, educators, and social scientists. In a recent national survey, 95% of adults say that children are too focused on buying and consuming things, and almost 80% agree that limits should

Individuals use brands to create and communicate their self-concepts, thereby creating self-brand connections. Although this phenomenon is well documented among adult consumers, we know very little about the role of brands in defining, expressing, and communicating self-concepts in children and adolescents. In this article, we examine the age at which children begin to incorporate brands into their self-concepts and how these self-brand connections change in qualitative ways as children move into adolescence. In three studies with children 8-18 yr. of age, we find that self-brand connections develop in number and sophistication between middle childhood and early adolescence.R esearch demonstrates that individuals use products to create and communicate their self-concepts (Belk 1988;Kleine, Kleine, and Allen 1995;Sirgy 1982;Solomon 1983;Wallendorf and Arnould 1988). Consumer brands are ideally suited to this process given the wide availability of brands and the range of distinctive brand images they reflect (Fournier 1998;Gardner and Levy 1955;Muniz and O'Guinn 2001;Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Consumers can appropriate associations belonging to brands, such as user characteristics or personality traits, and incorporate them into their self-concepts. In doing so, consumers form connections between brands and their self-concepts, referred to as self-brand connections (Escalas and Bettman 2003).Although this phenomenon is well documented in the literature, virtually all of the research to date has focused on adult consumers. We know very little about the role of brands in defining, expressing, and communicating self-concepts in children. A number of questions remain unanswered, such as, When do children begin to make self-brand connections? What developmental factors precipitate the use of brands to define and express self-concepts? Are there differences in the *Lan Nguyen Chaplin is assistant professor of marketing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Business Administration, 1206 S. Sixth St., 140B Wohlers Hall, Champaign, IL 61820 (nguyenl@cba.uiuc .edu). Deborah Roedder John is Curtis L. Carlson Chair and professor of marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, 321 Nineteenth Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (djohn@csom.umn .edu). Correspondence: Lan Nguyen Chaplin. The authors acknowledge the helpful suggestions of the editor, associate editor, and reviewers. The authors thank the staff and students of Camp Keepumbuzzi and the Marcy Open School for their participation. In addition, the authors thank our children, nieces, nephews, and neighbors for serving as pretest participants for all three studies. types of self-brand connections made by younger versus older children?In this article, we explore these questions by examining age differences in self-brand connections. Our interest lies in understanding at what age children begin to incorporate brands into their self-concepts and how these self-brand connections change in qualitative ways as children move into adole...

Consumers evaluate brand extensions by judging how well they fit with the parent brand. We examine this process across cultures. We predict that consumers from Eastern cultures, characterized by holistic thinking, perceive higher brand extension fit and evaluate brand extensions more favorably than do Western consumers, characterized by analytic thinking. Study 1 supports the existence of these cultural differences, with study 2 providing support for styles of thinking (analytic vs. holistic) as the drivers of cultural differences in brand extension evaluations.