Factors Influencing Children as They Consider Role Models

4) Age

As children change and develop their identities their role models change too. In French and Pena’s (1991) article they discovered young children “were noted playing dramatic roles of people they were close to and desired to model … these models were family members and other real people of the community: teachers, store clerks, firefighters, nurses, and so on” (para. 39). Older children, seem to choose role models from parents, entertainers, and professional athletes (Anderson & Cavallaro, 2002). Both older children and adolescents seem to choose similar role models, entertainers, sports heroes, and pop stars (Bromnick & Swallow, 1999). During this transitional period from childhood to adolescence, the role models chosen became less general and more specific. A young child might choose a singer as their role model while an adolescent would choose a specific performer such as Shania Twain or Justin Timberlake. However, we noted in Anderson and Cavallaro’s (2002) and Bromnick and Swallow’s (1999) studies the researchers found boys from early primary to high school chose male sports figures overwhelmingly as their role models.