Addressing difficulties with abstract thinking for low‐literate, low‐income consumers through marketplace literacy: A bottom‐up approach to consumer and marketing education

Abstract

We examine a bottom‐up approach to consumer and marketing education for subsistence consumers, that is, those with low income and relatively lower literacy levels. They face a variety of cognitive and other constraints, with difficulty in abstract thinking being a central issue that is critical for effective decision‐making. We study the impact of marketplace literacy education, with its unique bottom‐up approach, on abstract thinking in the consumer domain. We test the effectiveness of a bottom‐up educational approach, which covers concrete examples before abstract concepts, compared to the reverse sequence of a top‐down approach. We find that the bottom‐up approach in marketplace literacy education leads to more abstract thinking in the consumer domain compared to a top‐down approach. We discuss the implications of this research for consumer affairs.