Brands and Adolescents-
A qualitative study on how teenagers use brand personalities to explore and communicate their identity
Master Thesis Marie-Kristin Volquarts Graduate School of Communication
Student ID: 11108223
Supervisor: Dr. Renske van Bronswijk
03.02.2017
Abstract
This study aimed to get a better understanding of the way adolescents use brand personalities to create and communicate their own identity. 23 Interviews with 13-19 year old adolescents revealed several major themes, such as the experience of social feedback,
perceived benefits of brands, perceived personality expressed through wearing brands and perceived brand context, with one of the main themes being expression of identity through social media. Brands were found to be a useful tool to create and communicate identity, as well as to experiment with different identities including child-like or adult-like personalities. Moreover, it was found that brands not only function as an excuse for buying more expensive clothes and enable rash decisions, they can also help adolescents navigate their social
environment. The adolescents’ level of development was considered to be an important factor determining adolescents brand usage. While early adolescents, who have not fully formed their own identity yet, seemed to prefer a variety of different personalities, late adolescents seemed to prefer identities that match their more completely formed own identity.
Keywords: adolescents, identity formation, brand personality
A qualitative study on how teenagers use brands to explore and communicate their identity
Brand personality is defined as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Aaker, 1997, p. 347). Earlier studies suggest, that consumers prefer brand
personalities, which fit their own identity (Esch, 2010). Adolescents, however, are still in the process of forming their identity and undergo a transient development, which includes the goal of achieving autonomy. Apart from getting a sense of intimacy and finding their sexuality, a major part of achieving autonomy is to develop a stable identity. This process entails the creation of self-concept and self-esteem, which can be a vulnerable process
requiring constant external feedback (Erikson, 1963). Because adolescents like to experiment with different identities and peers matter a lot (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, forthcoming 2017), it is known that media content should focus on the two factors and include peers and a variety of personalities (Greenwood & Long, 2015).
Adolescents represent an important age group and form three different markets. On one hand, they still influence their parents to some extent (Chavda, Haley, & Dunn, 2005), while on the other hand they already own money themselves, making them individual customers (Akcay, 2012). Furthermore it has been shown that brand loyalty patterns are acquired during adolescence. Once a brand is chosen people tend to be loyal to it (Moschis, Moore & Stanley, 1984), which makes this age group representatives of future customers.
Brand personalities can have a variety of functions for both consumers and marketers. Brands can add to symbolic self-completion (Burmann, Halaszowich & Hemmann, 2012), fulfill consumer’s needs for orientation and identification, and create as well as communicate customers’ personalities (Sung & Kim, 2010). According to Escalas and Bettman (2003) consumers use brands to construct and define their own self-concepts and to present
themselves to others in a variety of contexts. Therefore brand personalities can provide a self-expressive benefit to the consumer (Aaker, 1999). Considering these functions of brand personalities and the socio-emotional development stage of young adults and their identities, it seems that brands can have benefits for teenagers.
Internet communication, such as social media forums, offer adolescents a platform to experiment with identities (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009;; Davis, 2012;; Valkenburg &
Piotrowski, forthcoming, 2017). Further the “liking” of a brand or sharing a picture of yourself wearing a brand can both be examples of online identity performance, that allow for peer feedback through “likes” or comments (Hollenbeck & Kaikati, 2012).
However, to the author’s knowledge, it has not yet been qualitatively researched how teenagers use brands to form their identity and how their preferences for different
personalities work together with brand personalities. This study explores to what extent adolescents choose a brand to match their identity or use a brand to find their identity. The theories on brand personality and teenager need to explore a variety of identities in the context of identity development lead to the following research question:
RQ: How do teenagers use brand personalities to develop and express their identity?
Theoretical Background
The theoretical framework of this study brings together three major topics: adolescents’ identity formation, brand theories and person-brand-congruity. First, the changes in the brain during adolescence and their impact on behavior will be described, followed by adolescents socio-emotional development and finally their use of social media. Additionally, brands will be defined, benefits of brands for customers will be explained, and the concepts of both,
brand identity and brand personality, will be distinguished. Finally, theories on brand-person fit, creating and communicating identity and the phenomenon of symbolic self- completion will be reviewed to establish and explanation for the connection between brands and customers.
Adolescents Identity
Changes in the brain . Dumontheil’s (2016) research on adolescents’ brain
development shows that there is reduced activation in the temporal cortex and a greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex. During the period of these changes in the brain, adolescents are more sensitive towards peers and the evaluation by peers. This knowledge helps to understand why adolescents might rely on peers’ feedback in the context of brands.
Valkenburg & Piotrowski (forthcoming, 2017) further emphasize that the changes in the brain are based on a ‘use it or lose it principle’. Adolescents’ brains develop in a way that allows them to function more efficiently, through a decrease of grey matter. Neurons and neural connections that are used will become hardwired while unused neurons will disappear. Consequently adolescence is known for being a “critical time for brain sculpting”
(Valkenburg & Piotrowski, forthcoming 2017, p.3). In terms of brand loyalty, this could mean that teenagers who use brands during adolescence might still use these when they grow up, while forgetting about alternative brands. Moschis, Moore & Stanley (1984) for example have already identified adolescence as a period that shapes brand preferences.
Socio-emotional development - Development of the Self. One of the goals of
adolescents is reaching autonomy, a crucial part of which is finding one’s own identity. According to Erikson (1963), establishing an identity means to achieve a firm sense of who
you are, who you want to become and where your place in society is, making the creation of a firm self-concept and self-esteem a crucial step in the development of adolescence.
Self-concept can be defined as the sum of all self-evaluations (Mummendey, 2006) or the subjective theory a person has about their own personality (Baumeister, 1997). Hence it refers to the notion of having believes and opinions about oneself. If a person can clearly define a consistent and stable self-concept, they reached a level of self-concept clarity (Campbell, 1990). Finally, as an important element of the self-concept, self-esteem can be described as the evaluation of the self-concept, drawing from both, personally experienced achievements and failures, as well as obtained feedback from others (Baumeister, 1997).
Self-presentation describes the concept of trying to show others the best version of oneself. The art of self-presentation lies within matching the own self-concept with the audience’s expectations (Goffmann, 1978;; Leary, 1955), which is based on social desire and impression management. The former refers to the way one presents themselves based on what is perceived to be the desired manner (Mummendey, 1995), while the latter is defined as “the conscious or unconscious attempt to control images that are projected in real or imagined situations” (Schlenker, 1980, p. 6). The difference between social desire and impression management lies within the consciousness of the action. People who act in a desired manner tend to genuinely believe what they are try to portray to be true, while impression
management can happen consciously, meaning the person is aware of their attempt to portray a good image (Mummendey & Bolten, 1993). Brands can be used as a tool for impression management, since it is known that brands can be used to convey a person’s actual or desired self (Belk, 1988).
Considering these concepts, individuals develop dynamic selves during adolescence. This means, that within the phase of identity development, adolescents develop multiple role-related selves (Harter, Bresnick, Bouchey & Whitesell,1997). Additionally, interpersonal interaction with both, parents and peers is central for identity development (Galliher, 2012;; Schachter & Ventura, 2008). Due to clashing views in existing literature about the importance of parents and peers feedback, this study aims to identify at what points peers matter more than parents and vice versa. Furthermore, it will be investigated how brands factor into the process of identify development.
Adolescents can take on different roles based on their social environment, which leads to changes in their reactions and the way they carry themselves. The same individual can behave calm in front of parents or teachers, while active and outgoing when with peers.
If these roles or selves possess different and opposed attributes, they can create conflict. Adolescents then struggle to identify which attributes and behaviors portray their true or false self. As confirmed by Harter et al. (1997) adolescents who engage in false self-behavior portray low self-esteem (Adams & Marshall, 1996). Brands, however, have been recognized as a tool to express different attributes of the self-concept (Aaker, 1997;; Escalas & Battmann, 2005). Although this may be true, to the authors knowledge, it has never been researched whether brands can additionally actively be used to explore one's identity, rather than just present an already existing identity.
In summary, it was established that identity is made up of self-concept and self-esteem, which are both influenced by external communication and behavior. The development of one’s identity in the form of behavior and appearance is especially difficult for early adolescents, who rely heavily on feedback from their social environment
(Valkenburg & Piotrowski, forthcoming, 2017). When experimenting with different identities, it was found that brands can be a tool for identity performance (Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price, 2008;; 2011) and targeted expression of varying identities (Aaker, 1997;; Escalas & Battmann, 2005). Hence the use of brands could be a useful way for teenagers to help with the struggle of creating and communicating their true self.
Internet and Social Media Use. Adolescents have for some years been identified as the age group with the most Internet use (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010), with a recent study of the german Pedagogical Media Research Centre Southwest
(Medienpädagogische Forschungsverbund Südwest, 2016) about the media usage of adolescents in Germany, identifying 99% of german teenagers to have at least occasional access to the internet. In 2016, 87% of german adolescents went online at least once a day, which is 7% higher than the year before. Further it was found that adolescents spend an average of 200 minutes online every day, 41% of which is used for communication and 29% for entertainment. This number is increasing throughout adolescence (Medienpädagogische Forschungsverbund Südwest, 2016). With four out of five favorite apps used in 2016, communication apps made up the majority of 2016’s favorite apps. Furthermore 86 % of adolescents like to use YouTube at least several times a week.
As seen in Figure 1, there is a difference in social media use between early and late adolescents. While only 13 % of early adolescents use Facebook, the social network is still popular, with 71% usage, for late adolescents. Contrarily it can be seen that Instagram use declined with increasing age. Additionally it was found that, while WhatsApp and Snapchat were primarily used in an active manner, Instagram and Facebook were only used passively. This means that adolescents reported to actively send messages and pictures on WhatsApp
and Snapchat, whereas they only read and observe on Instagram and Facebook (Medienpädagogische Forschungsverbund Südwest, 2016).
Figure 1. Activities online - Focus on Communication. Adapted from Medienpädagogische
Forschungsverbund Südwest (2016).
As mentioned earlier, adolescents rely on peer feedback in forming their self-concept and develop self-esteem. Internet communication, including social media platforms, presents a medium to do so (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009;; Davis, 2012;; Valkenburg & Piotrowski, forthcoming, 2017). Liking a brand or sharing a picture of yourself, wearing or using a brand, are examples of online identity performances, which allow for peer feedback through “likes” or comments (Hollenbeck & Kaikati, 2012). These findings are particularly interesting, considering previously mentioned findings about active versus passive modes of social media usage (Medienpädagogische Forschungsverbund Südwest, 2016).
Further, it is known that, due to the controllability of self-presentation and
self-disclosure, teenagers can experiment with their identity online even more than offline (Valkenburg & Peter, 2011;; Davis, 2012;; Valkenburg & Piotrowski, forthcoming 2017).
There are three features of Internet communication that are able to improve controllability including anonymity, asynchronization and accessibility (Valkenburg & Peter, 2011). Anonymity not only refers to the anonymity of a source or a sender of a message, but
moreover to an absence of nonverbal cues in online communication. This enables adolescents to get control over the richness of cues they like to communicate. Asynchronization disables a real-time conversation in which adolescents are forced to interact spontaneously. This allows them to think about their reaction and for example reevaluate and edit a message before they send it. Lastly, accessibility adds to improved controllability, by giving individuals easy access to their peers and to information on sensitive topics.
In the context of identity formation this means that these individuals also have a bigger audience to present themselves to in a controlled manner (Valkenburg & Peter, 2011). Hence online communication is further able to create a sense of belonging and manages to reinforce self-disclosure. Both, the extensive audience and the feeling to belong, describe ways in which peers shape identify development (Davis, 2012).
However, despite the many studies emphasizing the opportunities that social media offer for identity development, there are certain risks and concerns, that need to be taken into consideration. Social media use can be related to a less stable self-concept. According to the self-concept fragmentation hypotheses (Donahue, Robins, Roberts, & John, 1993;; Campbell, Assanand, & Paula, 2003), the easy access to different personalities and many opportunities might overwhelm adolescents and fragment their vulnerable personality (Valkenburg & Peter, 2011). In addition studies show that a compulsive use of Internet is associated with lower self-esteem (Kim & Davis, 2009;; Van der Aa, Overbeek, Engels, Scholte, Meerkerk, & Van den Eijnden, 2009). However, the advantages and disadvantages of social media use in the
context of brand usage as a tool to explore, create and communicate identity during adolescence remain unclear.
Introduction to Brands
According to the American Marketing Association website (2017) a brand is “a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers”. Conejo & Wooliscroft (2015), however, saw the urge to elaborate on this 80 year old definition due to a changed understanding of the complex construct of brands. The authors re-defined brands as:
complex multidimensional constructs with varying degrees of meaning,
independence, co-creation and scope. Brands are semiotic marketing systems that generate value for direct and indirect participants, society, and the broader environment, through the exchange of co-created meaning (p. 287, 2015).
Benefits of Brands . While benefits of brands can reach both consumers and
companies, this study will focus on the former. Consumers are often overwhelmed by the multitude of offers and brands and do not know which product to choose. Brands can solve a problem or meet a need through problem simplification and information processing. It has been shown that knowledge of a brand can easy an individual’s decision making process (Fischer, Hieronimus & Kranz, 2002), provide reliability and create a sense of reassurance (Bentele, Büchele, Höpfner & Liebert, 2009;; Schmidt & Vest, 2010;; Esch, Langer & Rempel, 2005). The notion of reliability and quality, especially in relation to well-known brands, enable customers to feel confident about their purchase. Furthermore brands offer added value through social benefits like symbolic self-completion (Burmann, Halaszowich & Hemmann, 2012), which is a theory about the importance of symbols or “indicators of
self-definition” that, when absent, encourage individuals to “strive after further, alternative symbols of self-definition” (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1981, p.89). In other words, an individual with a perceived lack of status in relation to their self-definition may strive to enhance their level of status with the help of a luxury good e.g. a Porsche.
While the studies referenced above mainly focus on consumers in general, the role of brands in the particular process of identity formation in adolescents deserves closer attention.
Brand Identity and Personality. Brand identity is “a unique set of brand associations
that the brand strategist aspires to create or maintain”(Aaker, 1996, p.68). Furthermore, brand identity “should help establish a relationship between the brand and the customer generating a value proposition involving functional, emotional, or self-expressive benefits” (Aaker, 1996, p.68). This concept is important to consider in relation to the relationships teenagers might form with brands.
Brand personality is defined as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Aaker, 1997, p.347). While brand identity describes the way the brand sees itself, the brand personality construct describes the way the brand is seen. Similar to a human identity, brand personality includes demographic characteristics such as gender, age and class. In line with the Big Five of human characteristics, Aaker (1997) established the brand personality scale to measure brand personality, including traits such as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness.
Due to a brand’s identity and personality consumers manage to form relationships with brands. Fournier (1998) was one of the first to define consumer-brand interactions as relationships that connect the consumer with a brand and that follow basic relationship
relates back to brand loyalty (Fournier, 1998). Escalas (2004), however, found that brand relationships can also occur in form of self-brand connections, that occur when a brand is considered as an integral part of an individual's’ self.
Adolescent-Brand Relationships and Person-Brand Fit. Aledin (2012) investigated
teenagers’ brand relationships, defining six types of relationships. Brands can be used as a
social filter that helps teenagers to find their role in society, as well as match makers allowing
teenagers to form friendships with the help of a brand. Brands can act as a mature friend creating a feeling of superiority to peers due to maturity, or functions as a reputation wrecker threatening one’s self-image due to a brand's bad reputation.
Then again, a brand can also be seen as a shoulder to lean on . Especially luxury brands can comfort adolescents and make them feel more secure. Lastly a brand can play the role of the mood sensor regulating teenagers mood for example through colours (Aledin, 2012). The author further stated that the way teenagers use brands happens in a purposeful manner. In their developmental phase, teenagers struggle with their self-esteem and long for connection and acceptance. This struggle can be eased through social interactions with the help of brands (Aledin, 2012). While these findings explain various ways in which brands can be used at a specific time by a specific teenager, they do not provide information about how teenagers might use brands to try out different personalities in the context of identity
development. The current study aims to research how brand personalities play into the formation of brand-relationships and provide help in the longer-term process of identity formation.
Theories on matching identities describe that consumers prefer brands that match their own identity, while disengaging from brands they do not connect with (Esch, 2010). This
study aims to investigate how adolescents use brands to match their identity or rather to create and communicate their identity. Do they choose a brand to match their identity, do they use brands to develop their identity or both?
The brand a consumer chooses can be seen as a mirror image of their personality (Schweiger & Dabic, 2008). Yao, Chen & Xiu (2015) also found that consumers feel emotionally attached to brands that match their own personality and reflect who they are. However, adolescents do not always know who they are as they are in the stage of forming their identity. When it comes to their choice of brands, there is no fixed or established identity to mirror, but rather an iterative developmental process.
Sung & Kim (2010) found that brands can be used by customers to create and communicate their own identity. As mentioned earlier adolescents rely on how their environment reacts to their appearance. The findings of Sung & Kim lead to the question whether brands can help adolescents to not only create, but to communicate their identity as well. Taking it one step further, Burmann, Halaszowich & Hemmann (2012) found brands to improve symbolic self-completion, as the attributes of the brand can be transferred to the consumer completing and defining their ideal self. While this explains the mechanism behind symbolic self-completion, it might also explain the role of brands in the process of exploring different roles during identity development.
Method
The present exploratory work will focus on the complex process of identity formation in relation to brands and brand personalities. It will be examined how teenagers use brands to develop their identity, whether they use a variety of brand personalities and why they use certain brands. Qualitative methods are suitable when broad exploratory research is needed,
when the topic is complex and needs a lot of explanations and when the respondents’ own views are of interest (Starr, 2012). Hence a qualitative approach was chosen in order to examine adolescents use of brands in the context of identity formation and brand personality. To obtain insights into complex behavior and motivations of teenagers, interviews were chosen as a qualitative method (Morgan, 1996). This method allows gaining a full picture of cognitive, social and informational processes of respondents’ thinking (Starr, 2012).
Sample
Since the subjects of the current study are teenagers, all participants were between 13 and 19 year old. The cognitive and socio-emotional development slightly varies between early and late teenagers (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, forthcoming 2017). Therefore there is a sample segmentation between early and late teenagers, which is where the variation in the sample derives from. This allows for a comparative dimension into research, in this case it allows for comparison of the answers of early and late adolescents. To ensure variety and obtain diversified viewpoints, the sample consists of participants from one school and participants recruited via word of mouth. Another criterion for identifying suitable
participants is social media usage. Participants needed to use any kind of social media that allows to like a fanpage of a brand. This criterion will help gain insights into the process of using social media pages to express a variety of identities.
Twenty-two adolescents were interviewed in Düsseldorf, Germany. 60.9 % of the participants were female and 39.1 % were male. The total average age was 15.6 years old. Early adolescents averaged 13.6 years of age and included 6 females and 4 males, while late adolescents averaged 7.3 years of age and included 7 females and 4 males. This four year gap allows for a comparison between early and late adolescents.
Procedure and Data Collection
In order to get a sense of sensitive topics, interviews were held. 23 in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data. Participants were recruited through approaching one school in Düsseldorf and through word of mouth. Recruitment was standard through all age groups and occurred primarily from attending classes at school and informing potential participants about the study and handing out flyers. All participants had the chance to win one out of three vouchers for the movie theatre or Amazon. Since most students finish their school by the age of 18, snowball techniques were also used to recruit additional older adolescents. This allowed a more complete sample bringing more variety into the sample. 19 participants were recruited from a school in Düsseldorf and the interviews took place at the school building and four more participants were recruited using the snowball techniques and their interviews took place at the participant’s homes.
30-minute in-depth interviews, held in German, took place at the school building and at participants homes. The interviews were audio-taped (Morgan & Spanish, 1984) and fully transcribed by the researcher (Boland, 1995). There was an interview-guide (Appendix B) to perform semi-structured in-depth interviews. Topics included how teenagers use brands, what the participants currently know and think about their favorite brands, including brand image and brand personality and how they use brands and social media fanpages to form and express their identity.
In the first part of the interviews participants were asked to speak about themselves to get their demographical data, to get a sense of their interests and to break the ice. To activate their brand awareness they were then asked to name their three favorite brands. The brand choices of participants will be compared in order to find possible patterns and similarities.
Further it was examined at what times brands are important (technology, clothing, beverages, food etc.) and how participants find out about brands they like. Participants were then asked to draw their favorite brands as a person and additionally they were asked to describe the persons’ characteristics. Personification is a useful tool for gaining insights in what type of brands participants use and what brand characteristics seem to be important to them (Melion & Ramakers, 2016). It was of interest if the brands they used were alike or if they different from each other. It was further examined whether the teenagers experience a perceived fit between their favorite brand personality and their own personality. The final part of the interview focused on social media and its effect on a participant's self-expression.
Ethical considerations
Participants, parents/legal guardians and teachers were informed about the study in written form and verbally. It was stated that participation in the study is voluntary and
anonymous. Participants and parents were informed prior and at the start of the interview that the interview will be audio-taped. As the target group consists of mostly minors, a consent form was signed by the parents or a legal guardian. The study took part under the supervision of the ethical committee of the University of Amsterdam.
Sensitizing Concepts
In order to give this work direction and “discover, understand, and interpret what is happening in the research context” (Bowen, 2006), two main sensitizing concepts are identified: “person-brand congruity” and “fluid personal identity”. As previously indicated, the person-brand congruity, in other words the perceived fit between an individual and the brand, is an important concept for brand success and for someone’s identity development (Matzler, Pichler, Füller & Mooradian, 2011). It is suggested that individuals prefer brands
that fit their own identity (Esch, 2010). However teenagers on the other hand usually have a fluid personal identity, meaning their identity is constantly changing and developing. The main goal of this research is to find out how teenagers use brands and how those opposing sensitizing concepts work together.
Analysis
All interview data were transcribed verbatim. There were two phases of analysis. First, open coding was done using the computer program Atlas.TI. In consideration of the sensitizing concepts, the data was analyzed and open codes were conducted. Secondly, more selective coding followed (Saldaña, 2015). It was analyzed which previously formulated codes are synonymous and which codes could be grouped. Sensitizing concepts were still used. Next, subjective experiences, feelings and emotions were identified to establish
categories and relations for a concept-indicator model (Glaser, 1978;; Strauss, 1987). In order to create the model, terms that best describe the concept that was found are defined. Those can be the sensitizing concepts with or without new insights. Lastly, indicators that emerge from those dimensions were labeled and representative quotes are given (Glaser, 1992).
Validity and Reliability
To enhance reliability and conformability the interview guide was tested prior to data acquisition. Furthermore the use of the computer software Atlas.TI adds to the reliability. The data was discussed with colleagues to avoid biased analysis (Flick, 2009). Transparency is given through the detailed description of the method and the standardization through the interview guide found in the appendix (Morgan, 1997). The validity of the present work was strengthened by peer debriefing, analytic induction to discover similarities in broad
categories, development of subcategories, thick description and review of past literature (Flick, 2009). A translation of all quotes can be found in the appendix.
Results
This study aimed to explore how teenagers use brands and different brand
personalities in the context of identity formation. Adolescents between 13 and 19 years of age were asked to describe their favorite brand as a person. It was of interest whether adolescents use a variety of different personalities, because they do not know who they are yet, or
whether they rather use similar brand personalities but change brands throughout their developmental stages. Both assumptions can be seen in the data. As seen in Figure 2 and Figure 3, early adolescents of the sample described that they use a variety of different brand personalities, while the late adolescents of the sample described similar brand personalities. The late adolescents however, reported that they used different brands when they were younger.
Figure 2. Brand Personality Use Early Adolescence Figure 3. Brand Personality Use Late Adolescence
From the analysis of the data, a range of themes emerged that play into brand choice and brand attitude, including the experience of social feedback (1), the perceived benefits of
brands (2), the perceived personality expressed through wearing a brand (3), the perceived brand context (4) as well as the expression of identity through social media (5).
Theme 1- Experience of social feedback
Throughout the interviews sensibility towards feedback was an underlying theme for adolescents’ brand choice. Negative as well as positive feedback seemed to impact the choice of a brand. Indirect feedback in form of conversations with peers or family members
appeared to be an additional factor impacting brand preferences.
Fear of being judged. The fear of being judged subsequently seemed to restrict the
choice of brands. Some participants reported that, despite preference for a certain brand, they do not always admit to this favoritism in social settings due to fear of judgement. This seems to be particularly true for the use of luxury brands. This fear of judgement can be due to already experienced negative feedback or having witnessed a peer receiving negative feedback in form of teasing or bullying and fear of a similar reaction.
Ich hab teilweise Freunde die reagieren sehr abfällig auf Marken. [...] Und
dann gucke ich immer dass ich halt versuche nicht über die Marke zu reden
weil ich weiß dass die Reaktion eh negativ ist. (17, female)
Da ist man halt direkt out sage ich jetzt mal, wenn man da keine trägt [...] viele lästern dann über den oder so. (13, male)
Feedback from family also seems to be very important. While early adolescents were more focused on their peers’ feedback and fitting in, older adolescents were more concerned about their parents approval. This could be due an approach to adulthood during late adolescence. Individuals that begin to identify with adults might view them as peers and value feedback from this audience more than before.
