What can The Study of Cognitive Development Reveal about Children's Ability to Appreciate and Cope with Advertising?

Abstract

The authors assess the study of cognitive development and what it reveals about children's ability to appreciate and cope with advertising. Whereas prior research on children and advertising has drawn heavily on Piaget's developmental theory, the authors argue that more recent approaches that focus on the development of children's “theories of mind” and “executive functioning” skills may prove more fruitful. The review of research on these topics generates two predictions: First, on the basis of theories-of-mind literature, the authors expect that children have well-formed conceptions of the intentions underlying advertising by seven or eight years of age. Second, on the basis of executive functions literature, the authors expect that children are not able to deploy these concepts effectively in their everyday lives until much later in development.