The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Customer Satisfaction and Repeat Buying Behavior among Young Consumers: An Assessment of the Moderating Role of Dental Health Consciousness †

INTRODUCTIONConsumer socialization can be defined as the procedure through which youngsters procure abilities, attitudes, and learning that are significant toward their behaving as consumers in the market place (Ward, 1974). In these procedures, parents, peer group, internet and advertisements play very significant roles of distinctive consumer socialization agents. Through these agents, children and adolescents gather necessary information which provides them substantial amount of awareness and abilities to behave, converse and bargain during buying decisions.The role of parents in the consumer socialization procedure is undisputable. Parents act as a catalyst in this socialization process and their impact depends upon the manner in which they converse with and raise children (Carlson and Grossbart, 1988; Carlson, Grossbart, and Stuenkel, 1992). Parents act as socialization specialists to their children (Moschis and Churchill, 1978; Caruana and Vassallo, 2003), and children observe the consumption practices of their parents in the family and acquire effective and ineffective behaviors over time (Bandura, 1977; Heckler, Childers and Arunachalem, 1989; Martin and Bush, 2000). Baumrind (1980, 1996) explained parental style as the way parents bring up children, and by using this concept of parental style Carlson and Grossbart (1988) studied its relation with parental engagement in childrenu0027s consumer socialization. Parental style and intervention on childrenu0027s socialization process depends on the age of the child (Banks and Gupta, 1980; Neely, 2005), on the sex (Neely, 2005; Moore and Smith, 1983), on the social class (Ward and Walkman, 1973), and on the parental orientation (more restrictive or permissive) (Carlson and Grossbart, 1988; Carlson, Laczniak and Walsh, 2001).In the process of consumer socialization children and adolescents gather necessary information which provide them significant amount of knowledge, skills and attitude. Children use these skills, knowledge, and attitudes to influence their parents and the term pester power has been coined to explain this phenomenon. Gunter and Furnham (1998) defined pester power as childrenu0027s and teenagers impact on family consumption patterns. Researchers have established that advertisements greatly influence pester power. Advertisements equip children and adolescents with adequate knowledge to contend and negotiate during purchasing. Buijzen, Van Reijmersdal and Owen (2010) have noted that adolescents are experiencing a highly commercialized media environment and exposure to advertisements cannot be avoided as it is ubiquitous and is implanted into contents of magazine articles, sports, films, television programs, and websites (Van Reijmersdal, Boerman, Buijzen and Rozendaal, 2016).Parents often show their concerns towards other socialization agents and their influence on children and adolescents. The impact of television advertisements has always been a matter of concerns for the parents. The role mass media play as a socialization agent has been researched extensively in the theory of consumer socialization (Chandler and Heinzerling, 1999; John, 1999), especially for the risky consequences it has over behaviors and attitudes of children and adolescents (Bush and Boller, 1991; Fox, Krugman, Fletcher and Fischer, 1998; Peracchio and Luna, 1998; Moore, Raymond, Mittelstaedt and Tanner, 2002; Henriksen, Feighery, Scheleicher and Fortmann, 2008).Consumer socialization of children and adolescents, television socialization and parental style are interlinked with each other. The current study attempts to understand this relationship in India where family structure and communication patterns are undergoing a tremendous transformation (Ali, Ravichandran and Batra, 2013). The study of mass media, and television in particular is pertinent as it influences young people steadily over time (Dotson and Hyatt, 2005), while the influence of parents and peer fluctuates over time (Moschis and Churchill, 1978). …