Nagging Works, Study Discovers
“Maahhhhhhhhhh, can we go to McDonald’s for lunch?”
“Mommy, can we pleeeeeeeeze rent ‘The Lion King’ tonight?”
“Daaaaaaaaaad, can I have $20 to buy the Spice Girls’ new CD?”
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze.”
The results are in from one more consumer survey that you just couldn’t live without: the “nag factor” study.
And the findings are no surprise to parents whose resolve has melted under the relentless wheedling of a material child.
“Nagging works,” said Cheryl Idell of Los Angeles-based Western International Media, which commissioned the study.
As many as four of every 10 sales of popular consumer products, such as jeans and hamburgers, are the result of effective nagging, said Idell, who believes the survey is the first to examine the effectiveness of this irritating habit of young children and teenagers.
According to the survey, 41 percent of trips to entertainment-based destinations are the result of - you guessed it - nagging.
So are one of three trips to fast-food restaurants and sales at apparel shops. Three of 10 home video sales are nag-induced, as is one in five trips to amusement parks.
Lynn Kern, a mother of two, says she isn’t nearly the pushover the survey suggests.
“For every 20 things they ask for that they don’t need, they get one,” Kern said, standing in the cookie aisle at a Ralphs grocery store.
But wait a minute. Isn’t that a box of cookies in Kern’s shopping cart?
Yes. And they got there because of some nagging by her daughter, Caitlyn, 9.
Kern’s son, Justin, 15, has a bit more refined taste. His nagging resulted in the purchase of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, Kern said, smiling adoringly at her son.
Quinta, 29, and Gerald Nixon, 30, said they, too, tend to give in to nagging - even if not directly.
Quan Nixon, 8, nagged Tuesday for a “Dennis the Menace” video at Blockbuster, but he didn’t win.
But later, his mother predicted, she and her husband probably would take the boy to Ralphs and let him pick out something special.
“I guess we feel guilty,” she said.