Preschoolers' Understanding of the Informational Function of Television Advertising

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Abstract
Two studies were conducted to examine preschoolers' understanding of the relationship between television advertising and the buying process. Advertising's role in the relationship is described as serving an “informational” function for the viewer, which is distinct from the seller's “persuasive” one. Two nonverbal measures were developed to measure children's understanding of the former. Study 1 (n = 120) involved a game in which children tapped their responses on a game board. Study 2 (n = 45) required preschoolers to enact purchase behavior. A minority of older preschoolers were successful in completing the tasks. It is argued that nonverbal tasks are appropriate for use with young children who are linguistically limited and that such techniques should be used to assess children's abilities in a commercial context.

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