Fifty years of consumer socialization research: a structural topic modeling approach and future research agenda Open Access

Teenagers (adolescents) drive billions of dollars in sales as consumers and as significant influencers in family purchase decisions across industries, including electronic goods, personal care, apparel, perfumes, fast-food restaurants, entertainment and e-commerce (John et al., 2024; Nash and Sidhu, 2023). Recently, many brands partnered with Inside Out 2, a “coming-of-age” and the highest-grossing animated movie of 2024, to specifically target teenage consumers globally (Szyrko, 2024). The first instance of research on teenagers as consumers appeared in the 1960s. However, the introduction of “consumer socialization”, a process that emphasizes the cognitive and psychological development of teenagers in shaping their consumer behavior, particularly during the formative years, became the guiding force for the fragmented research (Hota and Bartsch, 2019; John, 1999; Ward, 1974).

The field of consumer socialization continues to evolve due to advancements in technology (e.g. the metaverse and artificial intelligence), societal and environmental changes, and shifts in the thought processes and behaviors of teens (John et al., 2024). The foundational premise of consumer socialization is expanded to include multifacets of socialization, such as lifelong socialization encompassing all types of life events (Singh et al., 2020), ecological socialization (Gentina and Muratore, 2012) and digital socialization (Smith et al., 2015). Empirical evidence suggests the presence of reverse socialization, where teenagers’ environmental concerns significantly impact their parents’ pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors (Singh et al., 2020). Furthermore, the current marketplace is increasingly becoming digital and globalized, creating a need to understand and explore the impact of socialization agents in new emerging contexts, such as mental well-being, online gambling, climate change, sustainable consumption and multiculturalism (John et al., 2024).

Although consumer socialization has been studied for decades (Ward, 1974; Moschis and Churchill, 1978), the literature has grown increasingly fragmented due to the emergence of new agents, contexts, and themes. Traditional research emphasized primary socialization through parents and family (e.g. parental mediation, family shopping, materialism). However, contemporary studies also highlight the role of secondary socialization agents such as peers, schools and community norms (John et al., 2024). Secondary socialization occurs outside the family, when individuals interact with external agents, such as peers and friends, at schools or universities (Dotson and Hyatt, 2005). The rise of digital platforms has introduced novel dynamics such as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), influencer culture and algorithmic targeting that challenge and extend classical models (Bush et al., 2005). Moreover, the literature presents conflicting findings regarding the importance of socialization agents in distinct marketing and cultural contexts. Meanwhile, a parallel stream of scholarship has explored how socialization is shaped by deeper cultural and value-based contexts, including ethical consumption, sustainability and brand trust (Gong et al., 2022).

Despite extensive research on consumer socialization, there is a notable lack of studies (e.g. literature reviews or meta-analysis studies) that can reconcile these tensions or integrate new digital phenomena into established theoretical frameworks, barring a few exceptions (e.g., John, 1999; John et al., 2024; Mishra and Maity, 2021). Systematic literature reviews and meta-analysis studies include a limited set of studies, depending on how much researchers can assimilate and integrate the vast amount of information. In contrast, text-mining-based computational algorithms can analyze large volumes of text data to uncover hidden semantic patterns, particularly in literature reviews (Das et al., 2022; Pugliese et al., 2024). Hence, this study uses a robust and advanced text-mining method, structural topic modeling (STM), to examine the evolving landscape of consumer socialization over the last 50 years (Pandey et al., 2023). The study proposes a conceptual framework that accounts for both traditional and emerging influences, offering a foundation for future research in increasingly digitized consumer landscapes. Specifically, it addresses the existing research gap by addressing these three research questions (RQs):

We used the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases to extract information on relevant research articles using keywords identified from previous studies, resulting in a total of 1,162 papers. To address RQ1, we present publication trends using a scientometric analysis, focusing on the top publishing journals. For RQ2, we used STM for topic modeling to identify a list of 20 topics based on the occurrence of keywords. Finally, using the topic prevalence analysis, we outline the progress of research topics over the past 50 years and identify future research avenues.

This study makes multiple substantial contributions. First, we present a snapshot of the extensive research in consumer socialization. We identify the most influential papers, journals and authors who have played a key role in advancing the field, benefiting interested academicians and research scholars. Second, based on the text-mining analysis, we categorize the existing research into 20 topics. We propose a holistic model of consumer socialization (HMCS) that consolidates these 20 topics into four broad themes (types of socialization), supported by relevant theories from the literature. The HCMS model offers a new overarching framework to guide future research. Furthermore, we analyze research trends across all topics to highlight research gaps and delineate future research opportunities. Finally, we contribute to the field by applying STM to consumer socialization, potentially marking the first known study to do so. Despite consumer socialization being a well-established area of marketing, it has lacked a data-driven synthesis of its thematic and temporal development. While STM has been used in other marketing subfields, such as corporate social responsibility and consumer ethics (e.g. Das et al., 2022, 2025; Kumar and Srivastava, 2022), its application to consumer socialization offers a novel analytical perspective to the literature.

The process of socialization encompasses the mechanisms and actors responsible for people’s learning of existing societal norms, values and cultural beliefs. Marketing literature extends the concept of socialization, grounded in theories of cognitive development and social learning, to explain how teenagers acquire marketplace knowledge and become consumers (Mishra et al., 2018; Moschis and Churchill, 1978). There are three main components in the process. First, the antecedents include social and structural variables (e.g. ethnicity, age and education) that affect individuals’ consumer decision-making (Singh et al., 2003; Xiao et al., 2024). Second, the socialization agents (e.g. parents, peers and media) regularly interact with individuals and have the power to alter their behavior (Bao et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2012). The final part of the process is behavioral and mental outcomes or learnings (Shim, 1996), for example, attitude toward marketing stimuli (Mishra and Maity, 2021).

Research over the past 50 years has explored the multiple aspects of consumer socialization, focusing on socialization agents, processes and various outcomes. Traditionally, family and friends have been identified as the most influential socialization factors in shaping teens’ consumer behavior. However, the first level of primary socialization happens through family (e.g. family communication and parenting styles), caregivers and close environments (Hota and Bartsch, 2019; Mangleburg et al., 2004). Social learning theory explains the mechanism behind the crucial role of family in consumer socialization, as children acquire consumption-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors by observing and imitating their parents and siblings. Parental influence, whether through direct instruction or modeling, shapes children’s decision-making processes, brand preferences and ethical consumption habits (Gentina et al., 2018; Moschis and Churchill, 1978; Moschis, 1985). These early interactions establish foundational consumer competencies that extend to adulthood, reinforcing the significance of family as a primary socialization agent.

Secondary socialization happens through peers, particularly during adolescence (in schools or colleges), when social acceptance, identity-formation and peer norms heavily influence purchasing decisions (Gillison et al., 2015; Mishra and Maity, 2021). Through social interactions, peer groups facilitate the adoption of brand preferences, materialistic values and consumption habits via observational learning and normative pressures (Dotson and Hyatt, 2005). Moreover, peers influence consumption behaviors and contribute to identity formation, as adolescents use brands and products to construct and express their self-concept within social groups (Escalas and Bettman, 2005).

The third socialization agent, mass media, including social media, plays a significant role in consumer socialization by shaping attitudes, preferences and purchasing behaviors through advertising, influencer endorsements and peer interactions. Earlier research has explored the impact of traditional media, such as TV and print (Boush et al., 1994). However, a substantial amount of peer-driven influence extends to digital spaces, where social media amplifies the impact of peer recommendations and shared consumption experiences (Sasson and Mesch, 2014). Digital platforms expose individuals to online norms, promoting new consumption habits while raising concerns about online privacy, data security and targeted advertising. Online gaming environments act as socialization spaces where players learn virtual consumer behaviors, often influenced by in-game purchases, loot boxes, and peer interactions, which can contribute to social learning and ethical concerns (Narasimhan et al., 2022).

Finally, as a macro-level influencer, cultural and value-based socialization shapes adolescents’ consumer behaviors by transmitting societal norms, ethical values and lifestyle preferences through society and community engagement (Gentina et al., 2018). Cross-cultural studies highlight how values such as collectivism or individualism influence materialism, sustainable consumption, and ethical consumer choices, with sports and community participation reinforcing social identity and brand affiliations. Cultural norms shape adolescents’ food consumption habits, as exposure to traditional and globalized food practices through peers and digital media affects their dietary choices and sustainability awareness (Brown and Harris, 2023). Moreover, increasing multiculturalism exposes individuals to diverse cultural values, consumption practices and hybrid identities, shaping their preferences for global and local brands. Therefore, to address the evolving nature of consumer socialization, we propose a comprehensive HMCS model that integrates recent theoretical advancements and empirical insights, contributing to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon (Figure 1).

Topic modeling has evolved as a key analytical technique for processing large textual data sets, providing insight into the methodological contexts of this study. Early approaches, such as bibliometric and co-word analysis (Callon et al., 1983), relied on the co-occurrence of keywords or citations to map research domains. Subsequently, latent semantic analysis (LSA) (Deerwester et al., 1990) used singular value decomposition to identify hidden semantic structures within text. This was followed by probabilistic latent semantic analysis (pLSA) (Hofmann, 1999), which applied probabilistic modeling to capture word–document relationships. The next major advancement, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) (Blei et al., 2003), introduced a generative probabilistic framework that enabled unsupervised discovery of topics across large corpora. However, LDA and related models do not easily accommodate metadata (e.g. time, journal or author attributes), which limits their ability to analyze how topics vary across contextual dimensions. STM, introduced by Roberts et al. (2019), addresses this limitation by allowing covariates to influence both topic prevalence (i.e. how often a topic appears) and topic content (i.e. how the language used within a topic changes). This makes STM particularly powerful for research domains characterized by diverse contexts and long time periods, such as marketing and consumer behavior (Blasco-Arcas et al., 2022; Kumar and Srivastava, 2022; Pugliese et al., 2024). STM thus extends traditional topic modeling by combining statistical rigor with interpretive flexibility, enabling the systematic mapping of both historical evolution and emerging themes in a given body of knowledge (see Sharma et al., 2021, for more details). STM identifies the underlying latent themes based on the exclusivity and coherence of words, without requiring supervision. Exclusivity indicates the distinctiveness of words within a topic, whereas semantic coherence measures how well the words within a topic fit together conceptually, where higher coherence means the topic is easier to interpret. Researchers can assign meaningful labels to the set of words that occur frequently and exclusively together. STM helps researchers explore and visualize how multiple topics evolve using metadata, specifically topic prevalence, which calculates the relative importance or proportion of a topic across the entire data set. Hence, we use STM in our study to identify the latent themes and emerging research trends. Furthermore, we conduct a scientometric analysis to offer insights into publication trends, the most influential authors and the most productive journals.

First, based on the existing literature, we identified the important keywords to cover the research domain. In line with the consumer socialization framework (Moschis and Churchill, 1978), we included the following keywords in our search: consumer socialization, consumer socialization, parent influence, family influence, parental styles, peer influence, parental styles, socialization agents, informative influence, normative influence and media influence. Then, we searched the most widely used databases, Scopus and WoS, limiting keyword search to titles, abstracts and author keywords to retrieve relevant papers published from 1974 to 15 April 2025 (Kumar and Srivastava, 2022; Figure 2). The results were further filtered to include papers from journals listed in business, management, psychology and social sciences interdisciplinary disciplines in English language (Scopus – 1,141 articles and WoS – 1,828 articles). To ensure data quality and conceptual consistency, only peer-reviewed journal articles were retained in the final corpus, and conference papers, book chapters, editorials and reviews were excluded (Agarwal et al., 2024). We merged the results and removed duplicate articles to arrive at a total of 2,517 articles. Furthermore, we considered journals ranked in the Australian Business Deans’ Council list and the ABS Academic Journal Guide to ensure quality (Kumar and Srivastava, 2022). Finally, the authors have reviewed the titles and abstracts of each paper to ensure their relevance to the study’s objectives. Studies related to family ownership, family businesses, accident analysis and prevention, entrepreneurial ventures, human resource management, accounting firms, research on migrants and refugees, racial biases and safety research were excluded, resulting in a final count of 1,162 articles.

We cleaned and prepared the data for further text-mining analysis. We converted all the text to lowercase, removed numbers and punctuation, discarded words shorter than three characters, removed all non-alphanumeric characters and added stop words (e.g. country names, copyright, publishers and common research terms) to be excluded from the analysis. We also used lemmatization to convert words to their root forms to improve accuracy (Roberts et al., 2019).

The growth trajectory of research in consumer socialization is depicted in Figure 3(RQ1). The first twenty-five years (1974–2000) show a slow and steady growth, followed by a substantial increase in published studies. The top ten journals with the maximum number of articles published are presented in Figure 4. The findings offer a glimpse of a broad spectrum of research focusing on the importance of online platforms (including shopping, social media and virtual communities), typical consumer behavior, and the impact of global similarities (or differences) in consumer socialization. We also notice the presence of all four types of socialization covered in the research. Early research predominantly examined the importance of primary (family) and secondary socialization (peers) on adolescents’ behaviors and learning (Carlson and Grossbart, 1988; Moschis, 1985). The introduction of the Internet, social media, and online gaming enabled “online socialization” driving a substantial increase in research output (John et al., 2024; Narasimhan et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2012). Finally, studies have also explored the effects of culture and globalization in shaping adolescents’ consumption behaviors and attitudes (Singh et al., 2003; Xiao et al., 2024).

To address RQ2, we wanted to highlight the broad topics and research themes dominating the consumer socialization research. We used the “searchK” function and diagnostic plots to identify the optimal number of topics K (ranging from 10 to 40), with 60 iterations (Figure 5). We attempted to maximize semantic coherence and the held-out likelihood ratio while minimizing residuals. For example, if we compare K = 15 and K = 20, the held-out and residuals are lower for 20 topics, and coherence is slightly higher for 15 topics. So, K = 20 provides the optimal solution, balancing interpretability, semantic coherence, and exclusivity metrics (Roberts et al., 2019).

Then, STM was applied to the unstructured data to produce a list of the top 20 topics based on frequency and exclusivity (FREX) parameter (Figure 6). Words that are both common and unique for a given topic are highlighted by FREX classification (Kumar and Srivastava, 2022). FREX output contains a list of the top ten keywords appearing together.

To ensure reliability in topic interpretation, two independent coders with expertise in marketing and consumer behavior labeled each topic based on the top FREX words, representative documents (identified by gamma values), and the five most frequently cited papers within each topic (see Table 1). Discrepancies were discussed until a consensus label was reached. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using Cohen’s Kappa (κ = 0.88), indicating strong agreement. Furthermore, each label was cross-validated with prior consumer socialization frameworks (John, 1999; Mishra and Maity, 2021; Moschis and Churchill, 1978; Moschis, 1985). For example, Topic 1 (top words: alcohol, healthy, health, persuasive, persuasion, eating, beliefs, unhealthy, regulation, public) was named as “Health and wellness norms”. Furthermore, we used exclusivity scores to differentiate closely related themes (e.g. distinguishing between “digital media influence” and “virtual communities”) following the best practices recommended by Roberts et al. (2019). Topic 6 (“T6: Opinion leadership and peer influence”) was chosen based on its high coherence (0.47) and moderate exclusivity (0.41), indicating conceptually consistent and distinct words (e.g. “influence,” “peer,” “leadership,” “followers”). In contrast, topics with lower coherence but higher exclusivity (e.g. T13: Sustainability and green consumerism) were retained due to their theoretical importance and alignment with prior research on consumer socialization (Gong et al., 2022; Ham et al., 2022). Finally, each STM topic was mapped to established theoretical frameworks in marketing and consumer behavior. For instance, T2: Parental mediation and T6: Peer influence align with social learning theory. The HMCS model consolidates these theoretical linkages, illustrating how different socialization agents and contexts correspond to specific learning, motivational and cultural mechanisms. By embedding STM findings within these frameworks, the study advances a cohesive theoretical logic that integrates traditional and digital paradigms of socialization.

We can also identify noticeable trends in consumer socialization research through the percentage of topic prevalence, which quantifies the importance of a topic within the entire corpus. Some of the top topics that have attracted researchers’ attention are T2: Parental mediation strategies, T6: Opinion leadership and peer influence, T17: Digital media, and T18: E-commerce and impulsive buying.

As per the discussion in the theoretical background section, we mapped 20 topics into the four quadrants of HMCS (Figure 7).

Primary socialization encompasses T2: Parental mediation strategies, T8: Family shopping dynamics, T9: Materialism and family conflict, and T19: Parenting styles and career development. The primary socialization happens through family (e.g. family communication and parenting styles), where children learn consumption values and behaviors from family, caregivers and close environments (Hota and Bartsch, 2019; Mangleburg et al., 2004; Moschis, 1985). Parents are the first and foremost agents to impart ethical values and motivate children toward academic excellence (Gentina et al., 2018). Parenting style influences teens’ involvement in family consumption decisions (Bao et al., 2007), as well as their consumer ethics and unethical behaviors, such as providing incorrect information about age, altering price tags while shopping and engaging in digital piracy (Gentina et al., 2018). Furthermore, the amount of adolescents’ consumption-related communication within the family and parental restrictions vary across family structures (e.g. nuclear vs stem, Hota and Bartsch, 2019).

Under secondary socialization, we have categorized the following topics: T6: Opinion leadership and peer influence, T7: School-based eating habits, T16: Pro-environmental norms, T20: Luxury consumption and its drivers, and T1: Health and wellness norms. Peers, including external media influencers, drive secondary socialization, where teenagers are more concerned with identity formation and image management (Nash and Sidhu, 2023). Peers surpass parents in exerting one of the strongest influences on teenagers’ shopping and luxury purchases (Cohen et al., 2022; Mangleburg et al., 2004). Adolescence is a period of identity formation during which teens struggle to become part of a social group by adjusting to ongoing consumption trends, especially in terms of apparel and food habits (Gillison et al., 2015). For example, teenagers face brand-related bullying when they deviate from the prevailing social hierarchy and display non-conformity to the norms (Williams and Littlefield, 2018). A pervasive example of social norms and conformity is the color preference for apparel, where pink is associated with girls, and blue is linked with boys (Nash and Sidhu, 2023). In addition, peers in schools have a significant influence on adolescents’ eating habits (Grønhøj and Gram, 2020; WHO, 2024).

This category encompasses T5: Technology and privacy, T11: Virtual communities and eWOM influence, T14: Teen advertising influence, T17: Digital media, and T18: E-commerce and impulsive buying. Mass media is the third critical socialization agent in determining adolescents’ behaviors (John et al., 2024). While earlier research explored the impact of traditional media, such as TV and print (Boush et al., 1994), the introduction of the Internet and social media has garnered considerable interest from researchers (Chinchanachokchai and de Gregorio, 2020). Extant research has examined a broad spectrum of topics related to adolescents’ online behavior, such as privacy concerns and trust in digital platforms (Lyu et al., 2024; Wang et al., 2012), online gaming (Misra et al., 2024) and online norms in social media (Sasson and Mesch, 2014). Technological disruptions and changes in the media landscape (e.g. streaming services) have changed the face of communication from offline to online, where teenagers are deeply influenced by online peers and media influencers (Hong, 2024). Technology, especially social media, has a substantial impact on teens’ decision-making and their trust in online platforms and recommendations (Wang et al., 2012). In the digital age, teens’ behavior is increasingly shaped by online norms and conformity, often amplified by social networks and online platforms (Hota and Bartsch, 2019). However, too much exposure to online advertising can lead to an avoidance attitude toward marketing communications (Chinchanachokchai and de Gregorio, 2020). Similarly, teens use avoidance strategies (e.g., using privacy settings) to protect and safeguard their online privacy (Lyu et al., 2024). Recent research has also explored the increasing trend of online gaming and its consequences on teens’ behavior, such as bullying, violence and aggression, online harassment and abuse, and depression (Misra et al., 2024).

This quadrant includes T3: Financial literacy, T4: Brand relationships and trust, T10: Ethical consumption and culture, T12: Tourism and hospitality, T13: Sustainability and green consumerism, and T15: Community and sports. Macro-level influences, such as globalization, sustainability movements, and cross-cultural exposure, reinforce teenagers’ ethical, sustainable and culturally informed consumption (Gentina and Muratore, 2012; Lu et al., 2022; Singh et al., 2003). Adolescents’ personal value systems, such as their need for social identity, self-image and social distinctiveness, determine the adoption of sustainable fashion (Zollo, 2024). Increasing multiculturalism due to globalization offers a unique setting where interactions between personal, social, cultural, psychological and commercial factors influence how young consumers make consumption decisions and manage their identities (Gillison et al., 2015). Moreover, reverse socialization happens when teens’ environmental concerns and knowledge influence parents’ pro-environment attitudes and behaviors (Singh et al., 2020). Social identity and image concerns motivate individuals to adopt sustainable fashion practices (Zollo, 2024). Meanwhile, the need for uniqueness (social distinctiveness) and peer influence is responsible for a recent yet fascinating trend of entomophagy (Gentina and Pantin-Sohier, 2024). Individuals with pro-environmental and prosocial identities and values exhibit better engagement, which positively influences their sustainable and socially responsible consumption behavior (Zollo, 2024). Finally, teens have substantial power while selecting the destination for family travel (Shahdani et al., 2024).

To answer RQ3, we used topic prevalence, which refers to the probability of a topic’s presence in a document (in our case, a research article), indicating how frequently a topic is discussed within the text. Using publication year as a covariate, we plot a visual representation to show the research trends of identified themes over the last 50 years (Wetzels et al., 2025; Figure 8). The dotted lines represent confidence intervals. We observe that multiple topics have reached the stable or mature research stage, including T3: Financial literacy, T4: Brand relationships and trust, T17: School-based eating habits, T18: E-commerce and impulsive buying, T20: Luxury consumption, and its drivers. In contrast, the following topics display a waning interest from academia: T2: Parental mediation strategies, T8: Family shopping dynamics, T9: Materialism and family conflict, T14: Teen advertising influence, and T19: Parenting styles and career development. The interpretation of the declining trend presents a fascinating insight into literature. These topics have received sufficient attention in the past and do not offer much novelty for further work. We notice a significant amount of early consumer socialization research delved into the impact of parenting styles, peer influence, family shopping, teen advertising, and the role of children in household purchases (Boush et al., 1994; Foxman et al., 1989; John et al., 2024; Moschis, 1985; Shim, 1996). A visual comparison of prevalence trendlines (e.g. T2: Parental mediation strategies and T17: Digital media) reflects shifts from primary to digital socialization, aligning with conceptual transitions observed in the literature. A recent report from WHO (2024) emphasizes poor dietary habits, increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity, and insufficient physical activity among school-age adolescents. In this context, research has explored the role of parenting, peers and social media in encouraging nutritional diets and healthy food habits (Del Bucchia and Penaloza, 2016; Grønhøj and Gram, 2020).

The most useful outcome of topic prevalence analysis is the identification of emerging research themes. The research trends reveal topics with significant research potential, including T5: Technology and privacy; T6: Opinion leadership and peer influence; T11: Virtual communities; T17: Digital media; T12: Tourism and hospitality; and T13: Sustainability and green consumerism. Such topics reflect a shift in contemporary issues shaped by societal advancements and technological disruption. As expected, research on innovation and technology adoption, including cutting-edge technologies such as smart wearables, has continued to rise as teenagers are a critical market segment for new technologies (Kang and Jung, 2021; Mishra et al., 2018). With the growth of the Internet and online platforms, online trust and privacy have gained prominence, as both teens and parents are concerned about identity theft and data protection while online (Stoycheff and Stoycheff, 2024; Wang et al., 2023). The importance of children in family purchasing decisions is well-documented in research (e.g. Foxman et al., 1989). When people travel with children, the same pestering power plays a crucial role in the tourism and hospitality industry (Wen et al., 2020). Interestingly, rich teens are fueling luxury travel to reinforce their affluence and self-image through social media posts and highlighting the mode of transport (Cohen et al., 2022). Similarly, another notable research trend examines sustainable and green consumption among young consumers and the differences in green norms among multiple generations (Ham et al., 2022). Interestingly, early exposure to the Internet builds favorable environmental attitudes among teens, leading to subsequent sustainable travel behaviors. Young adults are more concerned with their green self-identity, driving sustainable consumption and advocacy (Gong et al., 2022).

The holistic model of consumer socialization offers an integrated perspective on the diverse factors shaping consumer learning and behavior. By consolidating theoretical linkages across learning, motivational, and cultural mechanisms, the model illustrates how different socialization agents and contexts collectively shape consumer development. By embedding STM-derived themes within these theoretical foundations, the HMCS offers a cohesive framework that connects classical socialization paradigms with contemporary, technology-mediated influences. A closer examination of the themes highlights the conceptual tensions that characterize the evolution of consumer socialization research. First, there is a growing divergence between parental and peer influence in shaping adolescents’ consumer learning. While early research (e.g. Moschis and Churchill, 1978; Hota and Bartsch, 2019) emphasized hierarchical family-based learning, contemporary studies increasingly highlight peer and influencer-driven socialization processes (e.g. Brown and Harris, 2023; Gentina and Pantin-Sohier, 2024). This transition reflects a shift from traditional, authority-based models toward more decentralized and peer-mediated learning structures. Second, the rise of digitally mediated socialization agents introduces a fundamental contradiction between authenticity and algorithmic influence. Whereas traditional socialization occurred in face-to-face contexts characterized by trust and direct modeling, digital platforms blur these boundaries through curated interactions, influencer personas, and AI-mediated recommendations (Smith et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2023). This creates both opportunities for expanded learning and concerns about artificial social validation. Finally, the literature reveals a persistent tension between materialistic aspirations and teenagers’ prosocial or ethical consumption values (Gentina and Tang, 2024). Adolescents simultaneously pursue identity expression through luxury and status-driven consumption (Cohen et al., 2022) while also endorsing sustainability and ethical consumption ideals (Gentina and Muratore, 2012). This duality highlights the moral ambivalence of modern youth culture and underscores the need for integrative theoretical frameworks that balance self-expression with social responsibility.

The findings highlight the mosaic nature of consumer socialization, demonstrating how various socio-cultural factors, parenting styles, peer and social norms, online platforms, and multiculturalism collectively contribute to shaping individuals as potential consumers. The findings also address the mixed findings in the literature about the primacy of various socialization agents in varying contexts. Moreover, the STM-derived themes offer an opportunity to revisit and enrich classical consumer socialization theories, such as social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) and consumer culture theory (Arnould and Thompson, 2005) to interpret the identified topics and to assess the need for reconceptualization.

Our study makes five key theoretical contributions to the field of consumer socialization research. First, recent studies highlight the pivotal role of digital trust in shaping teenagers’ willingness to engage in eWOM. For instance, Mishra et al. (2018) demonstrate that teenagers’ technology readiness, influenced by socialization agents (e.g. peers and parents), can affect their trust levels in online platforms. Similarly, Wang et al. (2023) demonstrate how parental privacy concerns influence adolescents’ online self-disclosure behaviors, suggesting that trust in digital environments is contingent upon both familial guidance and individual perceptions of platform credibility. In summary, digital socialization research contributes to and complements the growing literature on trust in digital platforms (e.g. Bush et al., 2005; Lyu et al., 2024). These findings reaffirm the core premises of social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), where learning occurs through observation and imitation. Our findings extend this theory to the digital context, where modeling increasingly occurs via influencers, peer-generated content and algorithmic exposure, rather than direct interpersonal observation. This reconceptualization emphasizes that adolescents now learn consumption norms through digitally mediated role models and virtual interactions, broadening the scope of traditional social learning. This enriches our theoretical understanding of how youths’ online trust and imitation are developed and how they predict interactive behaviors, such as sharing experiences, opinions and recommendations, in digital contexts.

Second, existing research highlights the intricate roles of socialization agents, family (including single parents), peers and online influencers, in shaping adolescent consumer behavior across various domains, including luxury and food consumption. In luxury contexts, adolescents pursue distinct social identities through aspirational reference groups and influencer endorsements, which foster emotional attachments to brands (Shin et al., 2022). These attachments are deeply tied to self-concept formation, as teens symbolically construct identity through branded consumption, a process shaped by cultural context (Lu et al., 2022). Similarly, adolescents act as active agents in family food dynamics, negotiating between personal preferences and parental health goals, thus co-shaping household consumption norms (Del Bucchia and Penaloza, 2016; Grønhøj and Gram, 2020). These negotiations are further complicated by peer influence and digital socialization, positioning adolescence as a period of identity tension and meaning-making (Smith and Bublitz, 2021). This process resonates with symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969), which posits that meaning and identity are co-created through social interactions. The themes of opinion leadership, peer norms and digital self-presentation highlight how such interactions have expanded into digital spheres, where adolescents construct their identities through visual and textual symbols, such as likes, shares and posts. Hence, our study strengthens the consumer socialization literature by adopting a symbolic interactionist perspective, emphasizing that adolescents are active interpreters of social cues within both offline and online environments, where meaning, identity and social belonging are continuously negotiated.

Third, previous research uses social identity and image management theories to emphasize the critical role of digital sharing in shaping adolescent travel decisions and experiences. For example, Cohen et al. (2022) highlight how affluent teenagers use social media to showcase luxury travel and transportation modes, generating aspirational content that influences their peers’ destination choices. Furthermore, Kim and Zhang (2021) demonstrate how interactive social media behaviors (e.g. likes, comments) shape teens’ eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth) and trip planning. From a consumer culture theory perspective (Arnould and Thompson, 2005), these behaviors demonstrate how adolescents’ travel and luxury consumption choices are embedded in broader cultural narratives of status, belonging and self-expression. Research trends such as luxury consumption, tourism and influencer engagement illustrate that adolescents are not merely cultural recipients but active agents producing and circulating cultural meanings through digital media. The findings highlight the increasing influence of digital sharing in hospitality and tourism, strengthening the importance of identity formation during adolescence.

Fourth, parents’ eco-conscious values can significantly predict their children’s green consumption practices, cementing the critical role of primary socialization (Gong et al., 2022). Due to the intergenerational differences in green purchase intent, teenagers may develop unique environmental attitudes shaped by their exposure to digital media and peer influences (Ham et al., 2022). Children and young people face both opportunities (e.g. fostering strong pro-environmental habits) and tensions (e.g. peer pressure, greenwashing) in sustainability marketing contexts (Singh et al., 2020). These patterns extend consumer culture theory by introducing the idea of reverse socialization, where adolescents influence parents’ ecological values and household choices. In this way, cultural learning becomes multidirectional rather than hierarchical, suggesting that consumer socialization theories must evolve to account for generational feedback and the diffusion of cultural values from youth to adults.

Finally, multiple socialization agents shape adolescents’ adoption of new technologies. For instance, Kang and Jung (2021) examine how privacy paradoxes related to smart wearables vary across generational cohorts, suggesting that teenagers may have distinct concerns that influence their likelihood of adopting innovative devices. Likewise, teens’ perceived trust and transparency strongly affect their acceptance and attitudes toward emotional AI and non-conscious data collection (Ho et al., 2022). Teens are more receptive to innovations such as eHealth and mHealth, which offer health benefits aligned with their personal and social values (Li et al., 2024). Most research on adolescents’ adoption of technology has used prominent IS theories like the technology acceptance model, innovation diffusion model, theory of planned behavior and theory of reasoned action, thereby integrating and enriching consumer socialization and IS literature. Our study reinforces the importance of IS theories and emphasizes digital socialization as a prominent socialization agent other than traditional ones. Moreover, the process of digital socialization suggests that the foundational theories of consumer socialization, rooted in learning, symbolic interaction and cultural meaning, remain relevant but must be reconceptualized for the digital age. Our analysis empirically demonstrates how adolescents now navigate a flexible ecosystem of socialization agents, both human and algorithmic, reaffirming the evolving nature of these theoretical frameworks.

Our proposed HMCSconceptual framework, along with the topic modeling analysis of literature, yields several key insights with practical implications for managers. The findings underscore the necessity for brands and platform managers to foster strong digital trust among teenage users. Younger audiences, much like millennials, are influenced by social and personal factors in forming loyalty, which can extend to eWOM if trust is carefully nurtured. Adopting transparent data policies and age-appropriate privacy settings for teens can enhance trust and encourage positive eWOM. Likewise, parental engagement and guidance often shape children’s online behavior, implying that brand messaging and community guidelines should address parental apprehensions to increase adolescents’ comfort in sharing eWOM (Stoycheff and Stoycheff, 2024). Hence, brands targeting adolescent markets should design trust-centric interfaces, provide explicit safety assurances and encourage constructive peer interactions to improve eWOM potential.

According to emerging research trends, as socialization agents shift from families and peers to digital influencers and algorithms, brand communication must adapt to these changing learning environments. Marketers targeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha can leverage social learning dynamics by positioning influencers and brand advocates as authentic role models who demonstrate positive consumption behaviors rather than aspirational excess. Campaigns that incorporate peer co-creation, user-generated storytelling and community participation are likely to generate deeper engagement and trust among younger audiences.

Topics linked to online communities and influencer culture reflect the dominance of YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram as social learning spaces where youth absorb norms, values and consumption cues. These results invite reflection on ethical influencer marketing practices, including greater transparency, safeguards for emotional well-being and content co-creation that emphasizes authenticity over superficial performance. Brands targeting adolescent consumers should carefully design influencer partnerships that resonate with teenagers’ developmental needs and social identity formation. A well-orchestrated social influence strategy that integrates influencers known for credibility and relatability can significantly enhance campaign effectiveness among adolescents. For example, Chanel has used Lily-Rose Depp, a highly popular media influencer, to engage with teen consumers on Instagram for many years. Brand managers should also consider cultural sensitivity, ensuring influencer campaigns address diverse social contexts.

Food marketers, policymakers, and health advocates must carefully craft campaigns and interventions that consider both parental and peer influences. Online food advertising tactics often target adolescents directly, underscoring the need for more responsible marketing practices that respect their susceptibility to social pressures. Likewise, brands and platform providers should adopt stricter guidelines to reduce harmful content, normalizing unhealthy eating behaviors among young audiences. To align marketing efforts with health objectives, we recommend age-appropriate content controls on mobile devices, ensuring minimal exposure to high-calorie, nutrient-poor food promotions. Finally, managers must support socially responsible food marketing that mitigates the negative impact of unhealthy norms.

Social media platforms serve as show-and-tell platforms for teens (secondary socialization), where posting visually appealing travel experiences can spark interest among followers (Cohen et al., 2022). Therefore, marketers should develop campaigns or influencer collaborations featuring teenage travelers, ensuring authentic content that resonates with teens’ social identity. Managers must carefully balance promotional strategies to avoid fostering purely materialistic or status-driven motivations, as emotions like envy can influence conspicuous consumption and travel plans. As an alternative strategy, destination managers might integrate educational or cultural elements that appeal to young travelers and their families, thereby adding substantive value to digital sharing experiences (Shahdani et al., 2024).

Building on the topic prevalence analysis, several data-driven research avenues emerge that can meaningfully advance consumer socialization theory (see Table 2). STM results allow us to identify not only which themes are underexplored but also how their prevalence has shifted over time, providing a clear direction for both empirical and conceptual extension.

Topics such as T2: Parental mediation and T8: Family shopping dynamics show a declining trend, suggesting conceptual maturity but continued relevance. Future research could reexamine these mechanisms through longitudinal or intergenerational lenses to assess how digital technologies reshape family communication and value transmission (Hota and Bartsch, 2019). This may help renew social learning theory by incorporating mediated learning environments and changing family structures.

Research on opinion leadership and peer influence reveals a growing trend, indicating a need for theoretical refinement in the areas of social identity and symbolic interaction. Adolescents increasingly learn consumption norms through horizontal, networked relationships rather than vertical parental guidance. Future work could integrate symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) to explore how digital peer networks facilitate the creation of new forms of symbolic learning and social validation.

Rapid growth in research trends, such as digital media, technology and privacy, as well as virtual communities, indicates an evolving digital socialization ecosystem. This trend calls for revisiting social learning theory in the context of technology and AI-mediated modeling. Future research could investigate how adolescents learn from algorithmically curated online experiences and parasocial interactions with influencers, extending the conceptual boundaries of social learning (Humphreys and Wang, 2018).

The increasing attention to sustainability, green consumerism, and cultural identity suggests the need to deepen the theoretical integration with consumer culture theory (Arnould and Thompson, 2005). Future studies could investigate how adolescents reconcile materialistic aspirations with ethical and prosocial values (Gentina and Pantin-Sohier, 2024; Gentina and Tang, 2024), potentially reframing the theory in terms of generational moral hybridity and digital activism.

STM results show that several topics (e.g. T20: Luxury consumption, T1: Health wellness and norms, and T18: E-commerce and impulsive buying) vary across decades and contexts. Future work could employ comparative and longitudinal designs to trace how sociocultural shifts influence the evolution of consumer socialization agents and outcomes. Such analyses would further validate STM as a longitudinal mapping tool for theory-building in marketing research (Pugliese et al., 2024).

Beyond their thematic relevance, these research avenues also highlight the need to revisit and expand the theoretical foundations of consumer socialization. The increasing role of digital agents, platforms, and algorithms calls for revisiting classical theories such as social learning theory and consumer culture theory. For example, social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), which centers on direct observation and modeling, must now accommodate algorithmic learning environments in which adolescents acquire consumption norms through AI-driven recommendations and influencer personas. Similarly, consumer culture theory (Arnould and Thompson, 2005) requires adaptation to capture digitally mediated cultural interventions, where identity and meaning are developed across social networks and global online spaces.

Furthermore, complementary perspectives such as sociotechnical systems theory can enrich consumer socialization research by conceptualizing digital ecosystems as interdependent systems of human and technological agents. This will help in understanding how emotional AI and algorithmic personalization shape adolescents’ affective responses and ethical decision-making. Finally, conceptual and practical tensions between autonomy and surveillance, materialism and morality, and peer conformity and individual identity present fertile ground for theoretical synthesis. Addressing these paradoxes can advance consumer socialization research to address the complexities of AI and technology driven digital socialization.

The study offers a comprehensive understanding of the growth of consumer socialization literature and emerging questions; however, it has the following limitations. First, the data was collected from the two most prominent databases, Scopus and WoS, which may have excluded relevant studies from other academic sources. Furthermore, we have only considered research publications and excluded other sources, such as conference proceedings, for analysis. Future research can combine academic articles and other sources from multiple databases to improve the generalizability of findings or even extend the current model (e.g. Sharma et al., 2021). Second, the data used for analysis was a combination of abstracts, titles and keywords, which may not capture the depth of each research paper. Thus, integrating full-text analysis could provide much broader coverage of topics. Third, we limited our research to the business and management domains. Future studies can extend the search criteria to fields such as developmental psychology and medicine to gain further insights into the evolving nature of consumer socialization.

The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions and to the Editor(s) for guiding the revision process.

No funding received for this research.