Understanding preadolescents as consumers: An exploratory study on their food purchase behaviour

The purpose of this study is to understand preadolescents as consumers and to conceptualize the process involved in their food purchase behaviour. Extant literature suggests that behaviour intention is generated as a combined effect of an individual's attitude towards consumption of the product and the subjective norms that one is exposed to. The present paper advocates that this combined effect does not necessarily lead to purchase intention amongst preadolescents and further investigates how they develop purchase intention and behaviour. A conceptual framework has been developed using the insights obtained from a thorough review of the literature and qualitative thematic analysis of 36 in-depth interviews conducted with preadolescents (9-14 years old) in the context of their food consumption behaviour. The paper proposes an attitude-motivation-behaviour framework which postulates that a favourable socialized attitude, a strong drive and a high perceived effort collectively create high motivation to purchase, leading to purchase behaviour intention, which in turn leads to purchase behaviour amongst preadolescents. The study provides a sequential process through which preadolescents make purchase decisions; hence the proposed conceptual framework, after a quantitative validation, may serve as a guideline for marketers in targeting preadolescent segments.