Can you remember your favorite childhood toy and how you acquired it? Your answer may reveal more about your family than you’d expect.
Social and behavioral science professor Jan Phillips of USM’s Lewiston-Auburn campus has been researching how the effects of toy consumption define and construct families. She was recently awarded for her outstanding research on the uses, designs, and effects of toys by the International Toy Research Association (ITRA) and by the British Toy and Hobby Association.
She presented her essay, “Accomplishing Family through Toy Consumption,” this past July at the 5th World Congress of the ITRA in Nafplion, Greece to an audience from more than 20 countries.
Phillips initial spark of inspiration to study how consumption constructs families came to her during a trip to the grocery store, where she observed her then-11-year-old son deposit about six or seven different varieties of cookie into their shopping cart.
Puzzled by his desire for such varied cookie choices, Phillips discovered that his intention was to use them as a social currency for lunch-time trading. Therefore his desire was rational, not simply self-indulgent.
Her subsequent research led her to the conclusion that the desires of children to have certain material objects relies heavily upon how those object will affect his or her acceptance into a community.
Phillips began her study with a group of 141 non-representative U.S. College students, asking them to write an ode to a favorite childhood toy. The results were not just revealing in regards to the individual’s taste, but also their family’s consumption practices while the students were growing up.
In Philips’ view, the idea of toys as mere objects of amusement is short-sighted. She sees them as a valuable window into economic situations, distinctly representative of the collision between class, gender, and ethnicity.
Though long overlooked, the consumer tendencies of a young family are increasingly being shown to have an enormous impact on their other activities. Adults often buy children toys not only for the child’s enjoyment, but also for the satisfaction of the child’s initial appreciation.
Phillips also found that children have complex motivations in desiring a toy. It’s not always a case of “the gimmies.”
By paying special attention to the consumption interaction between adults and children, appropriate consumptive practices will become better understood.
“Toys are unique belongings,” opined one of the study’s respondents. “They are played with for only a few years, but the memory of our love for them stays with us for the rest of our lives.”
Europe leads the world in research about the way consumerism affects the relationship between children and adults, especially the Nordic countries. Regular conferences and highly developed social services have allowed for much of the new research to be developed, even in some cases providing children grants to develop new toys.