We're not influencing our daughters as much as we think.

How we parent our adolescent off-spring 

has a strong influence on them, right?

Wrong.

My daughter Camilla and I - but who's influencing who?

New research* shows it’s probably the other way round – your teenage daughter is influencing you.

The researchers from the Temple University Fox School of Business looked at whether teenage girls tended to buy what their mothers bought, or vice versa. 

They sampled 343 mother-daughter pairs and found that mothers who are young at heart and fashion conscious tend to copy their daughter's consumption behavior. 

This runs counter to traditional psychological research on role-models and suggests a reverse-socialisation effect. Daughters, it seems, just don’t see their mums as role models when it comes to fashion. Shame really, just think of all the hand-me-downs they could profit from!

The researchers concluded that "children affect their parents' consumption behavior with regard to the products that the parents themselves consume."

So next time you find yourself stocking up on acne cream and pink hair dye and squeezing into a pair of micro-shorts, stop and ask yourself who’s been getting under your skin.


This highlights how human behaviour - financial and otherwise - is often driven by invisible forces. By unconscious motives and emotions that rarely crop up on our mental radar. In Sheconomics we show you how to notice - and get to grips with - those hidden forces so you are always in control of your spending and your life.

Temple University (2011, July 26). Mothers have a stronger tendency to mimic their daughters' consumption behavior than vice versa. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110725091718.htm