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Transformative Topics December

TCR Digital Outreach Committee

We wanted to encourage everyone to think carefully about the way consumption practices affect children and adolescents. As such, we went to the core TCR group leading work in this space. Indeed, Deborah Roedder John, Connie Pechmann, and Lan Nguyen Chaplin have just written an amazing editorial piece, "Understanding the Past and Preparing for Tomorrow: Children and Adolescent Consumer Behavior Insights from Research in Our Field," and have pulled together a great collection of articles at the  Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.


In the spirit of our transformative topics newsletter and its 'behind the scenes' storytelling, Deborah, Connie and Lan reflects on what lead them to work in this pace, their approach, and the important work being done in this space:



"Over 50 years ago, consumer researchers began to address questions about marketing to children. Efforts to study children and adolescents were sporadic in the early years and remain sporadic, in part because of the difficulties in accessing minors to participate in studies and the need to develop methodologies to study young children and adolescents.  Nevertheless, we have always felt compelled to study children and adolescents to improve their consumption and, thus, their well-being. All three of us are mothers who have nurtured our children from infancy through adolescence and beyond. We appreciate how precious they are and want to better understand the vulnerabilities they face.


The three of us found ourselves drawn to this field of research at different times to answer different types of questions. Debbie began researching children as a doctoral student at Northwestern in the late 1970’s. She was drawn into the field by the controversy over advertising’s effects on young children, which had resulted in a proposal to ban advertising to children under the age of 8 in the United States. Her dissertation provided evidence that younger children were more affected by television advertising than older children, buttressing the idea that younger children were more vulnerable to television advertising. After her dissertation, Debbie expanded her area of interest to understanding age differences in children’s learning, decision making, and consumer socialization across many topics.


Connie has always sought to have policy impact with her research to improve individual and societal well-being (she initially planned to be an attorney!). Early in her career in 1990, she saw a call for proposals from the newly-started California Tobacco-Related Disease Program. Connie received five large grants from this research program, allowing her to get into local schools and study youth’s reactions to cigarette ads, peers smoking, smoking scenes in PG-rated movies, and various types of anti-smoking ads. After starting to publish on these topics, Connie was appointed to the expert panel that helped oversee the U.S. National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign starting in 1998. California also began funding its own anti-smoking ads and looked to local researchers like Connie for guidance. Connie saw her research being used to inform concrete policy actions, just as she had hoped. Due to our country’s efforts to combat youth smoking,  smoking rates among them have plummeted, making this public health initiative one of the most remarkable and successful of its kind in decades (though JUULs nearly derailed it).


Lan found her way into the field in the early 2000s by reading research in consumer research as she pondered what area to choose for graduate study at the University of Minnesota. Her interest in children's consumer behavior was initially sparked by observing her nieces’ attachments to specific brands and how their choices influenced their identity. This curiosity led her to study how brand consciousness and materialism develop throughout childhood, focusing on how self-esteem shapes children's material values. She has spent the last 20+ years studying how children’s social-cognitive development influences their consumer values. She has applied her research findings to help nonprofits improve children's lives, particularly those from low-income backgrounds, by fostering environments where they feel valued and confident.


Though we entered the field at different times, and focused on different questions, our common interests were understanding the consumer behavior of children and adolescents, with an emphasis on their well-being. When the idea of featuring research on children and adolescents in a special issue of JACR arose, we saw a unique opportunity to speak to the consumer behavior world in a more directed way, and enthusiastically reached out to colleagues to contribute papers that showcased the important issues facing young consumers today. We focused the special issue on concerns about the well-being of young consumers and were pleased to offer readers a wonderful set of papers dealing with social media, social activism, food, gambling, smoking, marketplace literacy, healthy eating, and poverty.


As the special issue developed, we began thinking about what value we could add to readers in our introductory article to the issue. It was our hope to capture the attention of a wide base of readers of JACR, as opposed to researchers already engaged in working on topics related to children and adolescents. Debbie suggested that we provide a brief historical view of the field to help readers understand the field’s development, important research topics, and illustrative findings. Connie and Lan suggested that we provide a discussion of some of the most important and pressing issues surrounding young consumers, such as the effects of social media and encouraging healthy eating. We also decided that a discussion of newer areas of research, such as gambling addiction and use of AI, would be welcome to engage readers and perhaps draw them into doing research with children and adolescents. After discussions, we decided to address all of these topics in our introductory article to provide a statement on the historical roots of the field and future research topics.


We invite the TCR community to dive into a special issue that unveils the complex world of children's consumer behavior and its profound implications for their well-being. The collection of articles brings together cutting-edge research from leading scholars, exploring critical challenges facing young consumers—from the digital dangers of social media and artificial intelligence to the emerging risks of gaming and gambling. By illuminating the intricate connections between consumer culture and childhood development, this issue offers transformative insights that can help parents, educators, and policymakers protect and empower the next generation.


Read: John, D. R., Pechmann, C., & Chaplin, L. N. (2024). Understanding the Past and Preparing for Tomorrow: Children and Adolescent Consumer Behavior Insights from Research in Our Field. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 9(2), 107-118. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/729274


Abstract:

Our special issue on young consumers introduces readers to a research area that has been part of the consumer behavior field for over 50 years. We provide an overview of topics and findings from past to present that have appeared in marketing and consumer journals. We also identify current research issues and gaps and invite readers to contribute to the field. Throughout our discussion, we introduce the 10 articles in this special issue, whose topics include neuroscience insights into youth risk behaviors, the effects of social media on youth, social activism among young people, strategies for encouraging them to eat healthier food, parenting strategies and youth smoking, how gambling advertising affects youth, their need for marketplace literacy, and the importance of studying the lived experiences of youth in poverty. These articles include empirical findings and identify opportunities for future research that can positively impact the lives of children and adolescents.

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