children's use of cognitive defenses against television advertising

Children's Use of Cognitive Defenses Against Television Advertising: A Cognitive Response Approach

MERRIE BRUCKS GARY M. ARMSTRONG MARVIN E. GOLDBERG*

This study employs a cognitive response approach using non-directive probes rather than direct questions to assess the effects of advertising knowledge and the presence of a cue on thoughts produced by 9 to 10-year-old children while watching commercials. The number of counterarguments produced indicates children's use of cognitive defenses. The study found that advertising knowledge did not result in increased counterarguments against advertisements unless a cue was present to activate that knowledge. Direct questions (as opposed to non-directive probes) themselves appear to activate advertising knowledge, thus overestimating children'S actual use of cognitive defenses.

M any consumers and public policy makers believe that advertising unfairly manipulates children.

They contend that children are less able than adults to defend themselves against advertising because children do not understand the selling intent of commercials or because they lack sufficient cognitive abilities to assess or resist persuasive advertising claims.

To address this issue, one stream of research has explored the extent of children's "cognitive defenses," usually defined as children's understanding of the selling intent of commercials and an associated distrust of ads. While this research has yielded useful insights, it often assumes that children who have cognitive defenses will actually use them when exposed to advertising. To determine how the level of cognitive defenses affects resistance to persuasive appeals, a second stream of research has examined preference and purchase requests for advertised products as a function of cognitive defenses. This research has yielded mixed results. A third approach directly asks children about their reactions to special techniques and exaggerated claims in specific commercials. However, such direct questions may

'Merrie Brucks is Assistant Professor and Gary M. Armstrong is Professor, both at the Graduate School of Business Administration, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Marvin E. Goldberg is Professor, Faculty of Management, McGill University, 1001 Sherbrooke St. W., Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A lG5. This research was partially supported by a grant from the Business Foundation of North Carolina through the University of North Carolina. The authors wish to thank Carolyn Costley, Roxanne Lefkoff, Suzeanne Barry, and Kathryn Armstrong for their help with this project.

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evoke skeptical responses whether or not a critical orientation existed before the questioning.

The study reported in this article employs a cognitive response approach to examine children's cognitive defenses against television advertising. This approach uses non-directive probes to analyze the thoughts children produce while being exposed to advertisements. Thus, cognitive response measures can be used to examine the conditions under which cognitive defenses are actually used while avoiding the potential biases introduced by direct, self-report questions.

BACKGROUND If children do not realize that advertising intends to

persuade, then they will be likely to accept advertising messages as truthful rather than question them as adults often do. Thus, much previous research has examined children's comprehension of the selling intent of advertising (e.g., Donohue, Henke, and Donohue 1980; Rossiter and Robertson 1974; Ward, Wackman, and Wartella 1977). This research consistently shows that most children understand the selling intent of advertising by the age of eight, though some argue that this knowledge exists much earlier (Roberts and Bachen 1981; Wartella 1982). Children who understand the selling intent of advertising are said to have "cognitive defenses" (Rossiter and Robertson 1974). However, knowledge of selling intent is not sufficient to impart resistance to persuasive appeals. To effectively defend themselves from persuasive attempts, children must be able to discount the advertiser's message in some way.

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To examine how the level of cognitive defenses affects children's resistance to persuasive appeals, several researchers have studied children's judgments and preferences for advertised products as a function of these cognitive defenses. Field surveys have indicated that level of cognitive defenses is moderately linked to lower general trust and liking of advertising, a diminished desire for advertised products, and fewer product requests (Robertson and Rossiter 1974; Rossiter and Robertson 1974). But the correlation between cognitive defenses and product requests is relatively weak and disappears completely in the period immediately following heavy Christmas season advertising (Rossiter and Robertson 1974).

Several laboratory studies that assessed the use of cognitive defenses in specific advertising situations indicate that children do not use general advertising knowledge or skepticism as a cognitive defense. Ross et al. (1981 a) assessed the accuracy of kindergarten-tosixth grade children in judging the presence of actual fruit in cereals and beverages immediately following exposure to commercials for each of three types: "real fn,\it," "non-fruit," and "artificially fruit flavored" products. Seeing the "real fruit" and "non-fruit" commercials resulted in greater accuracy regarding the presence of real fruit, but seeing the "artificially fruit flavored" commercial resulted in greater inaccuracy. These effects were noted regardless of age. Older children, who presumably have greater cognitive defenses, were no more accurate than younger children. The authors concluded that the strategies used in the commercials for artificially flavored products overwhelmed the older children's general skepticism, resulting in miscomprehension of the messages. Alternatively, perhaps sixth grade children do not know what "artificially fruit flavored" means.

Similarly, Ross et al. (1981 b) reasoned that if an understanding of the selling intent and strategies of commercials and a corollary distrust of them is sufficient "defense," older children should be less influenced by extraneous information in a commercial, such as the use of a racing car celebrity or real racing footage in a toy racing car ad. In other words, children with higher levels of cognitive defenses should be able to more critically evaluate the commercial message, discounting irrelevant or extraneous material. They manipulated the presence of these extraneous factors in ads shown to older and younger boys and found that the celebrity endorser and real racing footage were effective regardless of age. Older children were influenced by the extraneous factors to the same extent as the younger children. The researchers concluded that, at least in this television viewing situation, the older children failed to use any television-related cognitive defenses they had acquired.

Another study suggests that commercials may cause children to act inconsistently with their established personal preferences (Roedder, Sternthal, and Calder 1983). This study found that, despite their presumed

THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

knowledge of advertising, fourth grade children ignore their product preferences and respond to the immediate influence of a commercial when making product judgments. By the eighth grade, however, children appear to stick with established preferences regardless of advertising. These results suggest that advertising can "overwhelm" young children's cognitive defenses.

Thus past research suggests that going into a commercial viewing situation, children over age seven have a general awareness of its selling intent. Yet some research suggests that coming away from the commercial, children may believe or behave in a manner that indicates this general awareness or skepticism was not used as an effective defense. A major limitation of these past studies is that they do not measure children's actual cognitive experience while watching commercials.

A second major limitation of some past studies concerns the strong biases that may be introduced through the use of direct, self-report questions (Brucks, Goldberg, and Armstrong 1986; Goldberg and Gorn 1983). For example, Roberts et al. (1980) showed children an instructional film designed to teach children to be more analytical and critical when viewing TV commercials. A control group saw an irrelevant film. Several days later, the researchers returned to show the children some commercials. To assess the effectiveness of the instructional film, they asked children direct questions about each commercial. For example, for a commercial with Bill Cosby endorsing Jell-O they asked: "Does Bill Cosby know more about Jell-O than most people?" Results showed that children who viewed the instructional film were more skeptical than those who viewed the control film. However, this approach begs a question: Was the issue of a celebrity endorser salient for the children as they watched the commercials, or was it prompted by the researchers' question? Specifically, a child who responded skeptically to direct questions about Bill Cosby's expertise may not have considered Cosby's expertise while viewing the Jell-O commercial. The question rather than the ad may have been the cue that elicited the critical responses. More generally, research that asks direct questions may make children more vigilant and critical, regardless of whether this orientation existed prior to questioning. It may be that all we can safely conclude from responses to direct questions is that as children grow older they learn to give "socially correct" responses (Rossiter 1979, p. 232):

Children's increasingly negative attitudes toward TV advertising do not mean much. . . they merely acquire an adult-like attitude against TV advertising as a social institution; an attitude which bears little relationship to advertising's actual effects.

COGNITIVE RESPONSE MEASURES The Role for Cognitive Response Measures

Cognitive response measures are non-directive probes to elicit an individual's actual thoughts during exposure


CHILDREN'S USE OF COGNITIVE DEFENSES

to persuasive messages. A typical probe would be "What thoughts and feelings were going through your mind as you watched this commercial?" Such measures can help to overcome the problems found in past studies that used more direct questions, and they can contribute to a deeper understanding of the process of using cognitive defenses. First, the non-directive cognitive response measures avoid the potential biasing effect of overly direct questions. Second, they can provide data about children's ongoing processing of information while watching television commercials. 1

Wright (1973) defined three major types of cognitive responses: (1) counterarguments, which require using prior knowledge to "argue" against implicit and explicit advertising messages, (2) support arguments, which are thoughts in favor of advertising messages, and (3) source derogations, which are thoughts critical of specific advertisers or advertising in general. Wright (1973) found that of all cognitive response mediators, counterarguments tended to be most predictive of attitudinal responses in adults. This was especially true where the situation made message processing more difficult, or where the subject's cognitive facilities were less devoted to processing the material. Wright suggested that under these circumstances adult subjects try to rely on a single cognitive mediator because it is easier than trying to balance several. To the extent that children have limited information processing capacities, and to the extent that they have limited capacities to develop cognitive responses, Wright's findings suggest that counterarguments may be the most important cognitive mediators of brand attitude formation and change for children exposed to persuasive messages.

However, counterarguments require knowledge of the advertised product and purchasing in general, which children often lack. For example, young children may not realize that products differ in durability or price and thus would not think to question these attributes. Unless they have knowledge about the specific advertised product, children may not be able to counterargue at all. General source derogation may be an easier and more effective cognitive defense in children.

IBecause children's verbal skills lag behind their capacities to cognitively grasp concepts, some recent studies have developed nonverbal response measures of comprehension of selling intent (Donohue et al. 1980; Macklin 1985). Whether or not non-verbal measures are more accurate, however, is debatable. Geis (1982) argues that such abstract concepts as "selling intent" cannot be defined or understood without language. In this study, we focus on verbal responses to advertising for two reasons. First, the controversy over verbal versus non-verbal measures has centered on much younger children (3 to 5-year-olds) than those in this study (9 to lO-year-olds). Second, we examine reactions to specific message arguments that are themselves verbal. To the extent that 9 to lO-year-old children can express their thoughts, cognitive response measures seem well suited for this purpose. However, we acknowledge that this approach may not work well with much younger children because of limitations in interpersonal or writing skills.

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Because previous research does not directly address this topic, the relationship between cognitive responses and persuasion in children is speculative. We argue here, however, that counterarguments and source derogations indicate an attempt to resist persuasion. Whether these attempts succeed depends on children's preference formation processes, a topic beyond the scope of this study.

Factors Affecting Children's Use of Cognitive Defenses

Roberts (1983) suggests that children must understand four concepts about advertising before their advertising knowledge can become a usable cognitive defense. Children must recognize (1) that the advertiser and viewer have different perspectives and interests, (2) that the advertiser intends to persuade, (3) that all persuasive messages are necessarily biased, and (4) that biased messages demand different interpretation strategies than do informational, educational, or entertainment-oriented messages. The operational definition of advertising knowledge in this study encompasses all four of these factors.

For this knowledge to provide an effective cognitive defense against persuasive advertising appeals, however, children must access it while they watch television commercials. To most effectively defend themselves, children must be able to retrieve advertising knowledge, which makes possible the critical orientation needed to identify puffery and other product-enhancing techniques. They must also retrieve knowledge about the product, product class, or general purchasing criteria so that they can generate counterarguments to specific product claims.

The ability to use such sophisticated information processing strategies depends on stage of cognitive processing development. Based on an extensive review of the children's information processing literature, Roedder (1981) proposed three stages of development: limited, cued, and strategic processing. Limited processors do not have the capability to use sophisticated information storage and retrieval strategies as a means for processing information. Cued processors can use such strategies when prompted or cued but do not use them spontaneously. Strategic processors possess and spontaneously use the skills necessary to store and retrieve information.

Roedder's conceptualization of cognitive development was based on three types of information processing activities: (1) using labeling and rehearsal strategies to enhance storage of information in memory, (2) using retrieval cues to locate a memory address for previously stored information and conducting a thorough search of memory once the address has been located, and (3) allocating attention to central rather than incidental material. Roedder reviews evidence that older children engage in each of these types of information processing


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activities spontaneously while younger children have trouble doing them at all. Children in the middle age ranges engage in the activities, but only when prompted. For example, instructions to rehearse improved recall only for cued processors. Strategic processors spontaneously used rehearsal strategies without instructions, while limited processors could only use rehearsal after extensive training.

The ages associated with the stage of development for each of these activities differ somewhat. Suggested ages for the latest developing activity, allocating attention to central rather than incidental material, are: limited, under 8 years old; cued, 8 to 12 years old; and strategic, 13 years and older.

Producing counterarguments and source derogations in response to commercial messages is a more sophisticated information processing strategy than uncritical viewing. It requires focusing attention on the message arguments and retrieving previously learned information to evaluate these arguments. Thus we might expect that children must reach the strategic processing stage, 13 years old, before they can generate spontaneous critical cognitive responses. Children 8 to 12 years old may need prompting to focus their attention and to counterargue, while children under 8 may be incapable of doing so at all.

HYPOTHESES This research study examines the use of cognitive

defenses by 9 to 10-year-olds. Past research indicates the children in this age group "have" cognitive defenses, but children's information processing research suggests that they may not spontaneously use these defenses. Based on our previous discussion, we present two hypotheses concerning children's cognitive responses to television advertising. First, if 9 to lO-year-olds are cued processors in the generation of cognitive responses, then advertising knowledge (as defined in Roberts 1983) will produce an effective cognitive defense only when a prompt or cue is present (for example, a reminder of the cognitions stored in memory given shortly before the viewing situation).

H1: When using counterarguments as indicators of the use of cognitive defenses against advertising, advertising knowledge will have an effect only when it is cued by a stimulus that activates this knowledge.

Previous research has assessed children's use of cognitive defenses by using direct questions that ask about the perceived accuracy of specific ads. When children are presented with such direct questions, the questions themselves serve as cues that activate advertising knowledge. Thus, children with more advertising knowledge will produce more skeptical answers to direct questions even in the absence of a cue to activate their knowledge:


H2: When responses to direct questions are used as indicators of the use of cognitive defenses against advertising, advertising knowledge will result in a higher level of skeptical responses whether or not a stimulus is present that activates this knowledge.

METHOD

Research Overview This section presents a brief overview of the research

design and procedures. Each step is then described in greater detail.

Four fourth-grade classes took part in the study over a one-month period. Each class participated in two research sessions held three days apart during school hours in their classrooms. Two independent variables were manipulated: level of advertising knowledge (high, low) and presence of a cue (present, absent), operationalized by the timing of a quiz on advertising.

In the first research session for a particular class, two researchers presented and discussed either instructional films (the advertising knowledge manipulation) or control films, and administered an advertising beliefs quiz for classes in the cue-absent condition. This took about an hour.

In the second research session three days later, two different researchers showed actual commercials for children's products to each class and took cognitive response and other measures. Precautions were taken to prevent the children from guessing that the two sessions were related in any way. Because the children's teachers expressed concerns that fourth-grade children might not know how to respond to non-directive probes for their thoughts, the second session began with a thought-listing exercise using a non-advertising stimulus. The two classes in the cue-present condition next filled out the beliefs quiz (the cue manipulation).

The researchers then said that they were interested in what the children thought about "things they see on Saturday morning television." All groups viewed the first item, a public service announcement about power line safety, and cognitive response and involvement measures were taken. This announcement was used to allay the children's possible suspicions that this class project was about advertising and to give them practice in answering a cognitive response probe. The cognitive response probe was written at the top of a blank page; it was also read aloud to the class. It said, "What were you thinking about during this [short film; commercial]? In the space below, write down all the things you were thinking about during the [film; commercial]." Enough time was given so that the slowest writers would not feel rushed. Faster writers were encouraged to put down their pencils when done.

Next, the children were shown four ads (for a doll, a transformable robot toy, a fruit candy, and a sweetened



drink), with cognitive response and involvement measures taken after each ad. Then the four ads were shown again, this time getting responses to the second set of dependent measures using direct questions. The ads were shown twice in order to avoid asking a direct question about one ad before cognitive responses were taken on a subsequent ad. Because the cognitive responses were non-directive, they should not have contaminated responses to the direct questions.

Independent Variables Advertising Knowledge. A high level of advertising

knowledge was created by showing and discussing two instructional films written for children that explained the persuasive nature of advertising. The premise of both films is that television commercials make products seem better than they really are. Both films demonstrate and discuss advertising methods that enhance a product's attractiveness or disguise its deficiencies. They caution children to watch for such potentially misleading techniques as using celebrities; giving away "dinky" free prizes; implying that the product will produce excitement, good looks, or love; flashing obscure disclaimers at the end of the commercial; and technical tricks such as close-ups, editing for excitement, dramatic sound effects, special sets, camera filters, and attractive lighting. Our pretests indicated that these films, combined with a 30-minute discussion, significantly increased the advertising knowledge of children in both the third and sixth grades as measured by a comprehensive knowledge test. These knowledge levels remained high for at least one week at both grade levels. An irrelevant film was shown to children in the lowknowledge condition. This film was discussed with the children in a manner equivalent to the discussion of instructional films in the high-knowledge condition.

Cue. The purpose of the cue was to activate advertising knowledge gained from the instructional films without providing additional advertising knowledge or direct suggestions of how the children were "supposed" to process the ads. Thus, the cue was not intended to be a processing instruction, but rather an unobtrusive memory aid. The manipulation was achieved by the timing of a short quiz that measured children's beliefs about advertising. The quiz consisted of five agree-disagree items, all dealing with issues covered in the instructional films. It asked the children the extent to which they agreed that television commercials can (I) make products look larger than they really are; (2) make products look like they work better and will do things that they really won't do when you get them home; (3) make products seem more fun and exciting than they really are; (4) make it seem that if you own the product you will be more cool, look better, or have more friends; and (5) make it hard to remember important things about products. Children in the cue-present condition took the quiz a few minutes before viewing the ads on

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the second research day, thus activating their prior knowledge of advertising without providing additional knowledge. Children in the cue-absent condition took the quiz on the first research day, immediately after the films and discussion. Because the ads were shown three days later, the quiz did not serve as a cue for these children.

Subjects The subjects were 102 fourth graders from two

schools in a medium-size university town. Fourth graders were chosen because (1) they are likely to be cued processors, (2) they are young enough to be interested in toys but old enough to articulate their thoughts reasonably well, and (3) at 9 to 10 years of age, they represent relatively sophisticated children. If these children did not use cognitive defenses, it could be safely assumed that younger children would not use them either. To ensure that children from the two schools were approximately equivalent, their verbal scores on the standardized California Achievement Tests (CAT) were compared. This comparison is particularly important because students were assigned to experimental conditions by class. If the schools were not equivalent on verbal aptitude, then verbal ability would be confounded with the independent variables. In fact, the fourth graders at the two schools were similar, scoring in the 81 st and 90th percentiles on the verbal portion of the CAT. To eliminate all possibility of confounding knowledge with ability, the high-knowledge conditions were assigned to the lower-scoring school. Thus, any relative increase in cognitive responses among the highknowledge group cannot be attributed to better verbal skills. Within each school, students had been assigned randomly to classes, making it possible for us to safely allocate classes to treatments in this study.

Advertisements The selected ads used techniques that had been dis

cussed in the instructional films. More specifically, the doll ad showed closeups to make it look bigger, de-emphasized the child's hand that made it move, showed a second doll that is sold separately, included a "free" necklace, and used special music, lighting, sets, and child actors to create a romantic atmosphere. The robot ad used closeups to make them look bigger, did not show the child's hands that made it move, and used lights, music, and child actors to make the product appear exciting. The fruit candy and sweetened drink ads used closeups, catchy music, and attractive and excited child actors to make the products appear fun and "cool."

Dependent Variables Cognitive Responses. Previous research on cognitive

responses has used various classification schemes to


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categorize responses. Probably the best known of these are Wright's (1973) and Greenwald's (1968). Cacioppo, Harkins, and Petty (1981) proposed that three dimensions characterize the classification of responses in past research: target, the focus at which the response is directed; origin, the primary source of the information contained in the response; and polarity, whether the response favors or opposes the advocacy. This scheme is both comprehensive and precise for coding cognitive responses.

The classification scheme employed in this study used the three dimensions discussed above. In addition, statements were coded on a relevance dimensionwhether or not the response relates to the advertisement. Only relevant statements were coded on target, origin, and polarity. The purpose of the classification scheme was to yield an understanding of children's thoughts as they watch television commercials and also to operationalize counterarguments for hypothesis testing.

Definitions and examples of the categories within each dimension are provided in Table I. The categories for target (product, product class, advertisement, communicator, self, others, advertising in general) are more specific than those proposed by Cacioppo et al. (message, source, receiver, and channel) in order to retain more information from the original thoughts. The categories for origin (message-originated, modified message-originated, and recipient-generated) include one enhancement: recipient-generated thoughts are further classified as either cognitive or emotional. Thoughts were not classified as emotional if they also contained cognitive content. Typical examples of purely emotional thoughts are "STUPID! DUMB!! YUCK!!!" and "NEA T! AWESOME!" Although most studies exclude purely affective responses from analysis of cognitive responses, they are included here because they account for a large percentage of the thoughts produced, giving a more accurate picture of what children think about while they watch television commercials.

Two judges classified each of the 982 thoughts, resulting in 3,712 classifications per judge. As shown in Table I, interjudge reliability ranged from 77 percent (origin of thought) to 95 percent (relevance of thought). A third judge independently coded all thoughts on which the first two judges disagreed, resolving 89 percent of disagreements. The remaining 85 codes were resolved by three-way discussion.

The dependent measures were created by combining classifications. Thoughts that were classified as modified message-originated and negative in polarity were defined as counterarguments. Those that were targeted at the product were considered separately from those that were targeted at the advertisement because it was believed that the advertising knowledge manipulation might affect these types of counterarguments differently. It should be noted that the operationalization of counterarguments directed at the ad includes much of the category termed source derogations by Wright (1973).


Although the coders found it impossible to distinguish whether some thoughts referred to the product or ad ("this is neat!"), virtually none of these thoughts fit into the counterargument category.

Direct Questions. After the second showing of each ad, the children were asked, "Do you think this commercial made [product] seem better than it really is?" Responses were measured on a four-point scale, ranging from "Definitely did not make them seem better" to "Definitely did make them seem better." We term this item the "perceived deceptiveness" scale.

Children who chose one of the two points on the "did make them seem better" side of the scale were asked to list the things that the commercial did to make the product seem better. Each plausible statement was given one point and the points were added to create a score for each child. We call this measure "deceptive techniq ues listed."

RESULTS

Manipulation Check As noted earlier, the cue variable was operationalized

by the timing of a quiz that measured beliefs about advertising. Scores on this quiz may be used to indicate the effectiveness of the instructional films. The possible scores on this quiz range from 5 to 20, with higher scores representing more skeptical beliefs.

Children who saw the instructional films scored an average of 18.4 on this quiz, while those who did not see the films scored an average of 14.8. This difference is statistically significant (p < 0.001). The moderately high score on this quiz by children who did not see the films indicates that 9 to lO-year-olds have indeed acquired a skeptical attitude toward advertising, consistent with previous research findings. In addition, results indicate that skepticism produced by the films did not drop off over the three-day interval between the instructional films and exposure to the ads. The scores of those who took the quiz immediately after exposure to the instructional films did not differ from those who saw the instructional films but took the quiz three days later (18.41 vs. 18.36).

Description of the Cognitive Responses Elicited

The 98 subjects who completed the task produced 982 thoughts, or about 10 per subject. Of these, 910 (92.7 percent) were classified as relevant (see Table 1). As discussed earlier, each relevant statement was further classified along three dimensions: target, origin, and polarity.

Of the 910 relevant thoughts, 75 percent were targeted at the ad, the product, or both. The remaining thoughts were targeted at the self(9.3 percent), the product class



Coding classification

Relevance of thought Relevant

Irrelevant

Monitoring

Target of thought Product

Product class

Advertisement

Ad communicators

Product/ad combination

Self

Other people

Advertising in general

Other

Origin of thought Message-originated

Modified messageoriginated

Recipient-generated, cognitive

Recipient-generated, emotional

Polarity of thought Positive

Negative

Neutral

Combined classifications Advertising counter

arguments

Product counterarguments

TABLE 1

THE CODING SCHEME AND INTERJUDGE RELIABILITY

Definition/Example

Thoughts connected to advertising or the product class. "I want one."

Thoughts having no connection to advertising or the product class. "I wish it was summer vacation."

Thoughts expressing that the product/ad is not appropriate for self. "This product/ad is for boys and I'm a girL"

Beliefs and feelings about the specific product. "I like that pretty doll!"

Beliefs or feelings about the product class. "Dolls are fun to play with."

Beliefs and feelings about the specific advertisement. "The ad used special music."

Thoughts about the actors or voices in the ad. "The kids are having lots of fun."

Thoughts that refer to either the product or the ad (or both), but where the specific target cannot be distinguished. "This is neat.'·'

Thoughts about the self. "I have one at home."

Thoughts about other people. "My sister would like this."

Thoughts about advertising in general. "Ads don't tell the truth."

Relevant thoughts not classified above.

Restatement or paraphrase of verbal or pictorial ad message. Little or no use of prior knowledge. "The fruit drink has a full day's supply of Vitamin C."

Reactions to, qualifications of, or illustrations of the material in the ad. Uses some memory of ad and some prior knowledge. "The robots are probably hard to stack" (in the ad, the robots are shown stacking themselves).

Thoughts that express pertinent beliefs not directly traceable to specific points in the ad. Use of prior knowledge. "That fruit drink has lots of sugar" (sugar not mentioned in the ad).

Thoughts that express pure affect toward the product, ad, communicator, or other relevant object or issue. "I hate toy robots!"

Favorable thoughts. "I like the kids in the ad."

Unfavorable thoughts. "This ad tricks people."

Thoughts that are neither favorable nor unfavorable. "My brother has one."

Negative modified message-oriented thoughts focusing on the ad. "Special music made the toy seem more exciting."

Negative modified message-oriented thoughts focusing on the product. "The robots don't really stack that fast."

Number(%) of responses

910 (92.7%)

51 (5.2%)

21 (2.1%)

289 (31.8%)

58 (6.3%)

241 (26.5%)

55 (6.0%)

152 (16.7%)

85 (9.3%)

20 (2.2%)

2 (0.2%)

8 (0.9%)

120 (13.2%)

208 (22.9%)

270 (29.7%)

312 (34.3%)

254 (27.9%)

415 (45.6%)

241 (26.5%)

93 (10.2%)

23 (2.5%)

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Reliability

95%

80%

77%

85%

(6.3 percent), the' ad communicators (6 percent), or something else (3.3 percent). Almost half of all relevant thoughts were negative in polarity (45.6 percent), while 26.5 percent were neutral and 27.9 percent were positive. The negative thoughts came mostly from the boys

when viewing the doll ad and girls when viewing the robot ad. Several children also felt that the toys were meant for younger children, generating negative thoughts. The food ads generated mostly positive thoughts.


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FIGURE

EFFECTS OF KNOWLEDGE AND CUE ON ADVERTISING COUNTERARGUMENTS

Total number of advertising counterarguments per subject

3.0

2.0

1.0

.16

.12

Cue present

o~--~--------------------------L----Low High

Advertising knowledge

Regarding origin of thought, the most frequent classification was recipient-generated emotional (34.3 percent) followed by recipient-generated cognitive (29.7 percent). This latter type of thought often referred to a previous product usage experience. Message-originated thoughts accounted for 13.2 percent of the total. Modified message-originated thoughts, which include the counterarguments of interest in this study, accounted for 208 thoughts (22.9 percent). Of these, 93 (44.7 percent) were advertising counterarguments and 23 (11 percent) were product counterarguments. Most of the remaining modified message-originated thoughts were support arguments or neutral thoughts.

Hypothesis Tests For each dependent variable, MANOV A was used to

estimate the effects of the between-subjects factors (knowledge level and cue presence) over all levels of the within-subject factor (the four ads).2 MANOV A may ~e use~ to analyze repeated measures designs; in fact, It reqUIres fewer assumptions than traditional univariate

2 The analyses were also conducted including a variable for gender, but results of the hypothesis tests were not affected. Because gender effects are not of interest in this study, these results are not reported. Involvement was also examined, but was not significantly related to any dependent variable.


TABLE 2

CELL MEANS FOR NUMBER OF ADVERTISING COUNTERARGUMENTS

Fruit Condition Doll Robot candy Drink

High knowledge Cue present 1.91 .55 .23 .23 Cue absent .62 .12 .08 .04

Low knowledge Cue present .12 .00 .00 .00 Cue absent .04 .08 .00 .04

Entire sample .63 .17 .07 .07

NOTE: Average number of counterarguments listed per subject.

Average all

products

.73

.22

.03

.04

procedures (see LaTour and Miniard 1983). If the knowledge X cue interaction was significant, the simple effects of knowledge level and cue presence were estimated (i.e., the effects of knowledge at each level of cue and vice versa). Last, interactions between the betweensubjects factors and the ads were noted. Wilks' lambda a multivariate test of significance, was used to test within-subject effects.

Advertising Counterarguments. Advertising counterarguments are negative modified message-originated thoughts directed at the ad rather than the product. It was hypothesized that knowledge would significantly increase advertising counterarguments, but only in the cue-present condition. This hypothesis was supported. The MANOV A indicated a highly significant knowledge X cue interaction (F(1 ,94) = 11.06, p < 0.001). Over 71 percent of these counterarguments occurred in the high-knowledge, cue-present condition. The Figure displays graphically the number of counterarguments produced per subject summed over the four products. Table 2 presents the cell means broken down by product.

Separate MANOV As were run for the two cue-present cells and the two cue-absent cells in order to estimate the simple effects of knowledge at each cue level and to note any interactions with ads. As expected, the effect of knowledge was significant in the cue-present condition (F( 1 ,45) = 24.61, p < 0.001). In addition, the multivariate test of significance indicated a significant knowledge X ads interaction (F(3,43) = 9.34, p < 0.001). In order to test the effects of knowledge for each ad, a MANOV A that tested knowledge within ads was run. This model indicated a significant effect of knowledge for each of the four ads at p < 0.05 or better. Thus the knowledge X ads interaction is the result of differing effect magnitudes, but not the absence of an effect for any ad.

The MANOV A for the two cue-absent cells also produced a significant effect for knowledge (F(1,49) = 4.69, p < 0.05), contrary to Hypothesis 1, and a marginally



significant knowledge X ads effect (F(3,47) = 2.71, p = 0.056). Nesting the knowledge treatment within ads, however, showed that the effects of knowledge were significant only for the doll ad (F(I,49) = 6.65, p < 0.05). The effects did not approach significance for the other three ads, (p > 0.30). One explanation for this result is that the doll ad was remarkably similar to a "mockup" commercial used in one of the instructional films to show how lights, setting, music, and motion can be used to make products look more exciting and realistic. The mock-up ad also explained the meaning of "sold separately," which also appeared in the real doll a~l. The other three ads did not have close counterparts In

the instructional films. In this case it appears that the doll ad itself may have served as a cue to activate advertising knowledge.

For completeness, a test for simple effects of cue presence in the low knowledge condition was also conducted. The advertising beliefs quiz indicated that the subjects in this sample were somewhat skeptical of advertising even though they were not exposed to the instructional films. These subjects may have accumulated advertising knowledge prior to participating in the research study. Thus, it is conceivable that the cue may have activated their cognitive defenses also. However, this apparently did not occur (see Table 2 for cell means). The effect of cue presence was not significant, nor was the cue X ads interaction significant. Although subjects in the low-knowledge condition did appear moderately skeptical of advertising on the quiz (average score of 14.8 out of 20), they had not been informed by the films about how advertising works or how to interpret advertising claims as had the high-knowledge group. Thus, the lack of a cue effect supports the contention that a moderate or general level of skepticism alone may be an inadequate cognitive defense. A more complete and detailed understanding of advertising's strategies and tactics appears necessary.

Product Counterarguments. Product counterarguments are negative modified message-originated thoughts directed at the product rather than the ad. It was hypothesized that knowledge would significantly increase product counterarguments, but only in the cuepresent condition. This hypothesis was not supported. Neither knowledge, cue presence, or the knowledge X cue interaction was significant; nor did the cell means fall in an interpretable pattern. It appears that advertising knowledge and a cue are insufficient to produce product counterarguments. Recall that the instructional films used to manipulate advertising knowledge focused mainly on advertising techniques and did not emphasize how to evaluate products (desirability, safety, nutrition, and other factors). It appears that children might benefit from education on product evaluation since product counterarguments were few in all four experimental conditions. In addition, increased knowledge about the specific product or product class may be necessary be-

479

fore children in this age group can dispute product claims (Costley and Brucks 1987). For example, the sugared-drink ad claimed the drink contained ~eal fruit juice, but children had to understand that dnnks can consist of a blend of ingredients before they could have questioned the amount offruit juice cont.aine~l. ~ecause this type of knowledge is product-specIfic, It IS more difficult to include in consumer education programs.

Other Counterarguments. One could argue that negative recipient-generated (cognitive) thoughts are also a form of counterargument. These thoughts are negative statements that are not directly traceable to specific points in the ad. Only nine such thoughts were targeted at the ad, and thus cannot be analyzed. Fortyeight were targeted at the product, and were subjected to MANOVA analysis. No significant effects of know 1-edge, cue, or the knowledge X cue interaction were noted. Again, it appears that children's lack of product evaluation knowledge or specific product knowledge caused the absence of findings. 3

Summary of Cognitive Response Findings. Both knowledge about advertising and a cue to activate that knowledge are required to produce advertising counterarguments in 9 to lO-year-old children. This finding is consistent with Roedder's categorization of this age group as "cued processors" regarding other information processing tasks. It appears that while watching television commercials, 9 to 10-year-old children do not spontaneously activate prior advertising knowledge to defend themselves against persuasion attempts. But when given a cue that triggers prior knowledge, children do counterargue against commercials.

Perceived Deceptiveness and Deceptive Techniques Listed. We will now look at the results from the direct questions. Two direct questions were used in the study. The first asked children whether the commercial made the advertised product "seem better than it really is." Responses were measured on a four-point scale. This item is termed "perceived deceptiveness." The second direct question asked children to list the things the commercial did to make the product seem better. This item is termed "deceptive techniques listed." If these direct questions accurately reflect children's cognitive responses while watching commercials, these results would parallel the previously discussed cognitive response findings. This is not, however, what we hypothesized.

3 Because discrimination between modified message-originated and recipient-generated cognitive was the least reliable of all category pairs, and because the frequencies of the two types of product counterarguments were so small, a MANOV A analysis was also conducted after collapsing these categories. However, results were the same.


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TABLE 3

CELL MEANS FOR PERCEIVED DECEPTIVENESS

Average Fruit all

Condition Doll Robot candy Drink products

High knowledge Cue present 3.55 3.45 3.00 3.45 3.36 Cue absent 3.64 3.52 2.56 3.40 3.28

Low knowledge Cue present 2.20 1.68 2.48 2.44 2.20 Cue absent 2.79 3.00 2.29 2.67 2.69

Entire sample 3.03 3.16 2.57 2.98

NOTE: 1 = Definitely did not make the product seem better; 4 = Definitely did make the product seem better.

It was hypothesized that knowledge would significantly increase skepticism towards specific ads as measured by responses to direct questions. Cue presence was not expected to have any effect or to interact with knowledge. This hypothesis was supported. The MANOVA for perceived deceptiveness shows a significant main effect for knowledge (F(1,92) = 54.29, p < 0.001), but not for cue or the knowledge X cue interaction. Since there was a marginally significant effect for the knowledge X ads interaction (F(3,90) = 2.52, p = 0.063), a nested model was run to test the effects of knowledge for each ad. For three of the ads, knowledge significantly increased perceived deceptiveness (p < 0.001). Knowledge was marginally significant for the remaining product, fruit candy (F(1,92) = 3.59, p = 0.061). Table 3 presents cell means for perceived deceptiveness.

The MANOVA for deceptive techniques listed also found a significant main effect for knowledge (F(1,92) = 58.14, p < 0.001) and no significant effects for cue or the knowledge X cue interaction. There was a significant knowledge X ads interaction (F(3,90) = 11.78, p < 0.001), so a nested MANOV A was run. This analysis showed that knowledge significantly increased the number of deceptive techniques listed for every ad (p < 0.001). Table 4 presents cell means for the number of deceptive techniques listed.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Knowledge about advertising, as provided by the instructional films, resulted in more skeptical and critical responses to the direct questions, consistent with the findings reported by Roberts et al. (1980). However, this critical orientation among knowledgeable children was not consistent 'with the actual thoughts children produced while watching the ads. Unless the children were given a cue that activated their advertising knowledge, knowledgeable children did not tend to generate critical thoughts during ad exposure. Thus, it appears


TABLE 4

CELL MEANS FOR NUMBER OF DECEPTIVE TECHNIQUES LISTED

Fruit Condition Doll Robot candy Drink

High knowledge Cue present 2.45 1.50 1.00 1.41 Cue absent 2.72 2.16 1.04 1.44

Low knowledge Cue present .32 .56 .52 .56 Cue absent 1.00 1.08 .29 .46

Entire sample 1.60 1.32 .71 .96

NOTE: Average number of deceptive techniques listed per subject.

Average all

products

1.59 1.84

.49

.71

that direct questions themselves may serve as cues that activate advertising knowledge. Furthermore, direct questions may elicit responses that children believe are "correct" or socially desirable (Goldberg and Gorn 1983). In either case, this study indicates that responses to direct questions overestimate children's actual use of cognitive defenses during exposure to advertising.

The cognitive response results indicate that when watching television commercials, 9 to 10-year-old children do not spontaneously retrieve prior knowledge about advertising but can do so when cued. This finding supports the theory that children in this age group are "cued processors" with respect to information processing strategies (Roedder 1981). However, this study did not address age-related differences in cognitive response. Future research is needed to determine whether cognitive response behavior varies over age as Roedder's categorization would predict. But such research may be difficult. Any age-related differences in cognitive responses may be due to differences in verbal ability or differential interest in the products advertised rather than changes in stage of cognitive development.

The counterarguments produced by children in this study reveal an effort to resist advertising persuasion. The study does not directly address how effectively these efforts actually reduce persuasion. However, previous research shows that counterarguments and source derogations are an important mediator of persuasion in adults (Petty and Cacioppo 1981; Petty, Ostrom, and Brock 1981; Wright 1973). If these results do not extend to children-if counterarguments children· produce during exposure to advertising do not affect their preferences-one must wonder whether children can generate effective cognitive defenses at all. Further research on persuasion processes in children is needed to resolve this question.

From a public policy perspective, the results of this study indicate that children (at least 9 to lO-year-olds) need more than just a skeptical or critical attitude toward advertising. They also need a more detailed



knowledge about the nature of advertising and how it works, as we provided in the instructional films in this study. Moreover, this detailed advertising knowledge must be cued in order to successfully generate advertising counterarguments. However, even detailed advertising knowledge and a cue to activate it did not produce product counterarguments. Future research should evaluate the role of product evaluation knowledge and specific product class knowledge in generating product counterarguments.

It is important to examine what cues might be feasible and effective in real advertising situations. The cue used in this study, the advertising beliefs quiz, likely activated the children's knowledge about specific advertising techniques since it involved the very specific issues discussed in the instructional films. But a simple prompt or cue might have served equally well in activating the children's knowledge. It should be noted that children who saw the instructional film but did not receive the extended content-oriented cue (the quiz) were able to list just as many deceptive techniques as the cued children did in response to a direct question. In effect, the question served as a direct but non-specific cue enabling the children to retrieve prior knowledge of advertising techniques.

This latter finding suggests that as long as the advertising knowledge is encoded, a simple non-specific but directive cue may be enough to activate it. An example of such a cue might be a public service announcement to think critically while watching television commercials. Or, as suggested above, a highly specific but nondirective cue is also effective. The beliefs quiz used in this study is an example of such a cue. Essentially, either a reminder of the information or a direct prompt to cue it appears capable of activating advertising knowledge stored in memory.

Further research is needed to develop effective cues for real advertising situations and to determine the age ranges over which cues are both necessary and effective. While information processing research suggests that cues would not be necessary for children over 12, and not effective for children under eight, this remains to be empirically verified.

This study suggests that cues along with prior instruction might be needed to help 8 to 12-year-old children effectively use their cognitive defenses against commercials. If future research confirms this finding, several alternatives exist for implementing this strategy. Institutions such as schools and television itself have an opportunity to educate children in this regard. Parents can also play an important role. For example, schools could add modules that teach children about advertising purposes and techniques. Broadcasters could insert last minute cues preceding clusters of commercials to remind children to watch the commercials that follow with a careful eye. Similarly, to the extent that parents can provide last minute cues while watching commercials with their children, the same goal may be

481

achieved. Further research might address the effectiveness of cues as a function of the institutional context in which the cue is presented.

[Received December 1986. Revised June 1987.]

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