The effectiveness of parental communication in modifying the relation between food advertising and children's consumption behaviour

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of various types of parental communication in modifying children's responses to television food advertising. In a combined diary‐survey study among 234 parents of 4‐ to 12‐year‐old children, I investigated how different styles of advertising mediation (active vs. restrictive) and consumer communication (concept‐oriented vs. socio‐oriented) moderated the relation between children's advertising exposure and their consumption of advertised energy‐dense food products. Interaction analysis in regression showed that active advertising mediation (i.e. explaining the purpose and nature of advertising), and socio‐oriented consumer communication (i.e. emphasizing control and restrictions) significantly reduced the impact of advertising on children's food consumption. Parental restrictions of advertising exposure were only effective among younger children (<8). These results suggest that critical discussion about advertising and rule making about consumption are most effective in countering the impact of food advertising.     

父母对儿童青少年媒介使用的积极干预

积极干预是指父母在孩子使用媒介前后或者使用过程中, 通过解释和讨论等互动形式对媒介内容、使用方式等提供指导。随着电子媒介在家庭中的普及, 父母如何正确引导儿童青少年的媒介使用行为受到了研究者的关注。父母对媒介使用进行积极干预对儿童青少年认知发展、社会性发展等诸多方面产生了积极作用, 例如提高儿童对媒介内容的批判能力, 有效减少暴力内容可能产生的消极影响等。影响积极干预行为的因素可归纳为两大类：家庭因素和儿童个体因素。未来研究可从完善测量方法, 探究父母干预行为与儿童青少年媒介使用之间相互影响的机制, 建构影响因素模型, 提高积极干预的有效性等角度进行深入探索。     

Reducing Children's Susceptibility to Commercials: Mechanisms of Factual and Evaluative Advertising Interventions

The aim of this study was to investigate how factual and evaluative interventions modify the effects of television advertising among children in early and middle childhood. First, a conceptual model of advertising intervention was developed, and then this model was experimentally tested drawing on a sample of 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 206). Structural equation modeling analysis confirmed that factual intervention reduced children's susceptibility to commercials by stimulating their advertising knowledge and skepticism, and evaluative intervention reduced children's susceptibility by influencing their attitudes toward commercials negatively. For children older than 6, both factual and evaluative interventions were successful in modifying the effects of advertising, whereas the younger children had difficulty processing any type of intervention.     

Mind the ad: How personality requirements affect older and younger job seekers' job attraction

Age discrimination may explain lower labour market chances of older and younger job seekers. What remains underresearched, however, is how older/younger job seekers might self-select out from early recruitment procedures due to stigmatizing information in job ads. Building on theories of metastereotypes and the linguistic category model, two experimental studies investigated how personality requirements that older/younger job seekers hold negative metastereotypes about and the way in which these requirements are worded (behavioural vs. dispositional) affected their job attraction. Within-participant mediation analyses showed that as expected, job attraction was higher for older (N = 123, aged 50 years or more) and younger (N = 151, 30 years or less) job seekers when requirements were worded in a behavioural way (e.g., ‘You can be flexible’), compared with a dispositional way (e.g., ‘You are flexible’). This relation was mediated by perceptions of challenge among younger but not older job seekers. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of threat did not explain the effects of negatively metastereotyped personality requirements on job attraction. Understanding how job seekers perceive information in job ads might help recruiters to design age-sensitive recruitment policies.     

品牌延伸条件下的广告说服——双中介影响模型的拓展

采用实验调查和认知编码的方法,探讨消费者的广告前后品牌态度,品牌认知反应、广告认知反应、广告态度和购买意向之间的关系。结果表明：（1）广告前的品牌态度对广告认知反应、品牌认知反应和广告后的品牌态度有影响;（2）广告认知反应直接影响广告态度,但不直接影响品牌认知反应;（3）消费者的广告态度不但直接影响品牌认知反应和广告后的品牌态度,还直接影响购买意向。这说明在品牌延伸条件下,广告态度的双中介影响模型需要修正     

Analyse de la structure factorielle du questionnaire de tempérament EAS (version parents) auprès de deux échantillons d’enfants âgés de deux à cinq ans et de six à neuf ans

IntroductionThe EAS temperament survey (Buss & Plomin, 1984) allows the measurement of four heritable and relatively stable dimensions of temperament, that is, Activity, Emotionality, Sociability and Shyness.ObjectiveA French translation of this tool has been validated with children aged from 6 to 12 years (Gasman et al., 2002), our goal is to extend the validation process to a group of younger children.MethodThe temperament of 350 children aged from 2 to 5 years and of 290 children aged from 6 and 9 years was assessed by the EAS and DOTS-R questionnaires (parental ratings).ResultsMulti-group confirmatory factor analysis allowed to confirm the measurement invariance and the structural invariance of the EAS (four-factor model) on both samples and showed that the scale scores are good approximations of the factor scores. Furthermore, there were no significant sex differences in temperament scores and we found that older children were on average less active and more emotional compared to younger ones. Finally, internal consistency and convergent validity of each scale were fairly satisfying.ConclusionThe EAS (parental ratings) can thus be used from the age of 2 years, facilitating the study of temperament development during childhood.     

Children's understanding of advertising: an investigation using verbal and pictorially cued methods

Conflicting results on children's understanding of advertising may stem from differences in research methods. Most studies are conducted using interviewing techniques, employing only verbal questioning. In the present study, 136 children of two age groups (7 and 10 years) were first asked what advertising was for and, after responding, shown depictions of possible reasons. The results indicate that although older children are more likely than younger ones to understand that advertising seeks to promote selling, pictorial cues allow a much larger proportion of all children to indicate their understanding than verbal questioning does on its own, with younger children especially showing improvement. Thus, seven‐year‐olds seem to have an implicit understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising that they are unable to articulate in response to investigators' questions. Multiple methods appear to offer a means of evaluating the level of sophistication in children' understanding of advertising. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived Parental Anxiety and Depressive Problems and Emerging Adult Oppositional Defiant Problems: Moderated Mediation by Psychological and Physical Maltreatment and Gender

Recent studies have argued that Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) problems continue into emerging adulthood; however, few studies have examined ODD problems in this population. Moreover, previous studies have found that corporal punishment mediated the relationship between maternal anxiety/depression and child ODD problems in young children and that parental psychopathology is likely to affect child ODD. This study examined how maternal as well as paternal maltreatment (i.e., psychological and physical) mediated the relationship between parental anxiety/depressive problems and emerging adult ODD problems (i.e., irritability and defiance). Furthermore, child and parent gender were examined as moderators (i.e., moderated mediation). Participants included 1,012 emerging adults who completed questionnaires about parental psychological and physical maltreatment, parental anxiety and depression, and affective and behavioral ODD symptoms. Results suggested that mediation occurred for the father–daughter dyad along the perceived paternal depressive problems → psychological and physical maltreatment → irritability paths and for the mother–son dyad along the perceived maternal depressive and anxiety problems → psychological maltreatment → defiance paths. Given that mediation occurred for only these gender dyads, moderated mediation was suggested.     

Child Characteristics,Parent Education and Depressive Symptoms,and Marital Conflict Predicting Trajectories of Parenting Behavior from Childhood Through Early Adolescence in Taiwan

The study examined how child and parent characteristics, and contextual sources of stress, such as marital conflict predict initial status and trajectories of parent involvement, support, and harsh control, over a 4‐year period in families in Taiwan (n = 4,754). Based on Belsky's (1984) ecological model of parenting, three domains predicting parenting were tested, child characteristics (age cohort and gender), father and mother characteristics (education and depressive symptoms), and contextual sources of stress (marital conflict). The study followed two cohorts of children; the younger cohort was followed from first to fourth grade and the older cohort from fourth to seventh grade. Initially, fourth graders reported more parental involvement, support, and harsh control than first graders. However, involvement, support, and harsh control decreased across the 4 years for the older cohort as they transitioned to early adolescence. In the first year, girls reported more parental involvement and support and less harsh control than boys. Across the 4 years, involvement and support increased, and harsh control decreased for boys; whereas involvement stayed the same, support slightly decreased, and harsh control slightly increased for girls. Children whose parents were more educated reported more parent involvement, support, and harsh control in the first year. Children whose fathers were chronically depressed and whose parents were experiencing marital conflict reported decreasing parent involvement and support over the years.     

Family Dynamics in Digital Homes: The Role Played by Parental Mediation in Young Children’s Digital Practices Around 14 European Countries

In contemporary society, digital media are fully integrated in our daily lives, indispensable for our routines, always connected and at-hand. Our research thus explores the parental mediation of portable digital devices in families with young children, addressing the following questions: (a) which are the most common parental mediation styles adopted towards young children; and (b) which individual features of the parents or contextual factors influence the parental mediation style adopted. Our methodology is exploratory and qualitative, considering as empirical corpus 14 national reports from the European-scale study “Young Children (0–8) and Digital Technologies” for a comparative thematic analysis. The authoritative style was the most common parental mediation style related to technology use. In general, there are transversal rules to all parental mediation styles (except laissez-faire style), such as withdraw or give devices to children according to their behavior, control (inappropriate) content and control the time of use. Also, parental perceptions and attitudes about the technologies played a heavier weight on the parental mediation style adopted, and consequently influenced the relationship of the children with digital media. Some implications for future studies, preventive actions, and family therapy are discussed.     

品牌熟悉对广告过程中品牌态度改变的影响

文章通过分析广告前后被试者品牌态度的变化,研究了在不同的广告态度和信息相关度条件下被试者品牌熟悉程度对品牌态度变化的影响。结果显示品牌熟悉程度对品牌态度变化的调节作用并非单向的,而是与广告态度和信息相关度交互产生作用的。当被试者不熟悉品牌且有正面的广告态度时或当被试者不熟悉品牌且信息相关度较低时广告才能产生说服效果,进而使被试者的品牌态度发生改变。     

Development of interactions between sensorimotor representations in school-aged children

Reliable sensory-motor integration is a pre-requisite for optimal movement control; the functionality of this integration changes during development. Previous research has shown that motor performance of school-age children is characterized by higher variability, particularly under conditions where vision is not available, and movement planning and control is largely based on kinesthetic input. The purpose of the current study was to determine the characteristics of how kinesthetic-motor internal representations interact with visuo-motor representations during development. To this end, we induced a visuo-motor adaptation in 59 children, ranging from 5 to 12 years of age, as well as in a group of adults, and measured initial directional error (IDE) and endpoint error (EPE) during a subsequent condition where visual feedback was not available, and participants had to rely on kinesthetic input. Our results show that older children (age range 9–12 years) de-adapted significantly more than younger children (age range 5–8 years) over the course of 36 trials in the absence of vision, suggesting that the kinesthetic-motor internal representation in the older children was utilized more efficiently to guide hand movements, and was comparable to the performance of the adults.     

Whose picture is this? Children's memory for item and source information

Children aged 3½ to 6½ years viewed pictures of common objects presented either once or three times on one of two consecutive days. A different hand puppet was used to present the pictures on each day, providing both perceptual and temporal cues to source. At test, old (studied) and new (non‐studied) pictures were presented for item recognition and source identification. Results showed that both item and source accuracy were higher for older (M = 5; 9 years) than younger children (M = 4; 6 years). Significant interactions between Age and Day of study were found for both item and source accuracy. For younger children, accuracy was higher for pictures studied on Day 1 than Day 2 (significant for source identification but not item recognition), whereas older children showed the opposite pattern: Higher accuracy for Day 2 than Day 1 (significant for item recognition but not source identification). Results are interpreted with respect to proactive interference and response bias. The utility of signal detection theory measures in determining the basis of age differences in performance of source identification is discussed.     

Essentialist beliefs affect children's outgroup empathy,attitudes and prosocial behaviours in a setting of intergroup conflict

Empathy for salient outgroups can promote positive intergroup attitudes and prosocial behaviours. Less is known about which factors may promote empathy, particularly among children, in contexts of intergroup conflict. Empathy may depend on underlying cognitions, such as social essentialist beliefs, that is, believing that certain social categories have an underlying essence that causes members to share observable and non-observable properties. This study explored the influence of essentialist beliefs about ethno-religious categories on outgroup-directed empathy, attitudes and prosocial behaviours of children living in Northern Ireland (N = 88; M = 7.09, SD = 1.47 years old). Bootstrapped chain mediation found that lower essentialist beliefs predicted greater outgroup-directed empathy, which was positively related to outgroup attitudes, which in turn, predicted more outgroup prosocial behaviours. The findings highlight the importance of essentialist beliefs as an underlying factor promoting empathy, with links to prosocial behaviours in settings of intergroup conflict. The intervention implications are discussed.     

Rural Chinese children as consumers: consumption experience and information sourcing

• This study examines how often rural children in Mainland China interact with different types of retail shops, how they learn about new products and services, and their attitudes toward different sources of product information. A survey of 1008 rural children aged from 5 to 13 years, in four Chinese provinces, was conducted in March 2003. Results indicated that rural Chinese children have limited access to various types of retail shops. Rural children perceived personal sources more useful as well as more credible than commercial sources in obtaining information about new products and services. Older children found parents and grandparents less useful and less credible than younger children for new production information. However, older children did not find peers more useful and credible than younger children.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's consumption behavior in response to food product placements in movies

Almost all research on the effects of product placements on children has focused on brand attitudes or behavioral intentions. Drawing on the important difference between attitudes or behavioral intentions on the one hand and actual behavior on the other, this paper tests the effects of brand placements on children's food consumption. Children from 6 to 14 years old were exposed to an excerpt of the popular movie Alvin and the Chipmunks, including placements for the product Cheese Balls. Three versions were created: one without placements, one with moderate placement frequency, and one with high placement frequency. Results showed that exposure to high‐frequency product placements exerted a significant effect on snack consumption, but no effect on brand or product attitudes. These effects were independent of children's ages. The findings are of great importance to consumer behavior scholars, nutrition experts, and policy regulators. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

广告干预对消费者品牌态度和信任的影响

为了探讨广告干预对危机品牌的消费者品牌态度和信任的影响,采用实验组与控制组对照的前测后测设计,其中实验组采用2×2因素型被试间实验设计。结果表明:广告干预对被试的内隐品牌态度发生了一定程度的影响,对被试的外显品牌态度和品牌信任则发生了很大程度的影响;高渗透广告相较于低渗透广告能驱使消费者对危机品牌产生更为正向的外显品牌态度;理性诉求广告相较于感性诉求广告能驱使消费者对危机品牌产生更为正向的外显品牌态度;广告的渗透程度和诉求方式对内隐品牌态度的影响存在交互作用;品牌信任受双重态度驱动。     

Liking of Movie Genre Alters the Effectiveness of Background Product Placements

Product placement has been likened to evaluative conditioning (EC) in which a viewer's liking of an actor using a brand transfers to the brand. Less research has evaluated how more subtle background placements work. Further, most published studies report explicit brand attitudes as outcome measures. We show that background placements of a familiar brand can alter implicit brand attitudes. Furthermore, viewers who liked the movie genre showed positive implicit attitudes, and viewers who disliked the movie genre showed negative implicit attitudes, suggesting that genre generated affect transferred to implicit attitudes. Advertising implications are discussed.     

The Development of Family Loyalty and Relational Ethics in Children

Despite little research investigating how family loyalty and relational ethics develop in children, theorists suggest that children's early family loyalty experiences play a significant role in their future relationships. Twenty-four children, ages 5–10 years, were interviewed to examine developmental trends in children's conceptualizations of family and family loyalty and their reasoning through parent-child ethical dilemmas. Results indicate (a) younger children possess a simpler, more concrete schema for family and family loyalty than do older children and (b) younger children are less able than older children to adopt their parents' perspectives in reasoning through ethical dilemmas.A psychotherapist with T. W. Ponessa & Associates     

The Diagnosticity of Advertising Generated Brand Attitudes in Brand Choice Contexts

Advertising theory tends to presume, sometimes implicitly, that advertising mediates brand choice through its effect on brand attitudes. This article addresses the limitation of using brand attitude measures at or near the time of advertising exposure to predict the relative ability of a set of alternative advertising message appeals to directly influence brand‐choice decisions. The results suggest that the ability of advertising‐generated brand attitudes to predict advertising effects on brand choice declines when (a) consumers’ motivation to deliberate is greater at the time of brand choice than at the time of attitude formation, (b) the message appeal of the brand assigned the most favorable attitude rating is not accessible, not perceived to be at least as diagnostic as competitor appeals, or both, and (c) attitude differences among brand alternatives are small.