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Young children under the age of eight internalise normative information about adult drinking habits through observational learning. Parents - especially mothers - have a particular influence here. This is the result of a study by La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. The study investigated the extent to which parents' alcohol consumption affects the normative perception of young children.
The study leaders, Dr. Megan Cook and Professor Emmanuel Kuntsche, interviewed 329 children aged four to six in the Netherlands. Using electronic tasks, the children were asked to select one of twelve drinks (four alcoholic and eight non-alcoholic) from a picture of everyday situations (people at a campsite, in a restaurant, at a party, etc.) and match it to the person pointed to by an arrow. To do this, they tapped on the picture of the drink they thought the person in the pictured situation had drunk. The pictured situations were presented one after the other and in random order. Each person in the pictured situation was assigned a drink before moving on to the next situation. The parents filled out a questionnaire about their consumption behaviour at the same time.
The evaluation showed that parents play the main role in observational learning. "The results provide compelling evidence for the intergenerational transmission of drinking behaviour at a very young age, and because exposure is gender-specific, it may be an important first step towards the gender-specific drinking identities found in the adult population," Dr Cook and Professor Kuntsche said. "At the time consumption begins, it is based on years of observational learning related to the physical and social environments in which children live, as well as the availability, price and marketing of alcohol," the researchers said.
(al / source: drinksbusiness; photo: 123rf)
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