Children, Object Value, and Persuasion

Abstract

We argue that, contrary to standard views of development, children understand the world in terms of hidden, nonobvious structure. We review research showing that early in childhood, items are not understood strictly in terms of the features that present themselves in the immediate “here‐and‐now,” but rather are thought to have a hidden reality. We illustrate with two related but distinct examples: category essentialism, and attention to object history. We discuss the implications of each of these capacities for how children determine object value. Across a broad range of object types (natural and artifactual, real and virtual, durable and consumable), an item is evaluated very differently, depending on inferred qualities and context. In this way, children's early‐emerging conceptual frameworks influence how objects attain both psychological and monetary value, and may have important implications for which messages children find most persuasive.

Children's Understanding of the Instrumental Value of Products and Brands

“…Gelman and Echelbarger (2019) examine children's abilities for different types of inferred nonvisible qualities, such as those associated with the history and authenticity of objects, while we examine inferred qualities of objects related to the attainment of goals, such as self-concept development and self-presentation. Gelman and Echelbarger (2019) find evidence that children understand the inferred qualities of objects at quite an early age, by 5 years of age, while our data suggest that the instrumental value of objects emerges at later ages, as children approach adolescence.…”

“…Consistent with the studies we review, we refer to age groupings as follows: early childhood (3-7 year olds), middle childhood (8-9 year olds), late childhood (10-11 year olds), early adolescence (12-13 year olds), and late adolescence (16-18 year olds). Across different goals, we find that children develop a greater appreciation for products and brands that further these goals with increasing age, peaking during late childhood and early adolescence, considerably older than the developmental trends described by Gelman and Echelbarger (2019).…”

“…In their concluding comments, Gelman and Echelbarger (2019) call for "future research to examine how social learning provides a rich source of inferences about object value that extend beyond the item's material qualities." Our research context, examining products and brands and their instrumental value in domains such as self-concept development and self-presentation, begins to answer this call, providing a context for exploring the role of social learning.…”

“…We know very little about how children evaluate aspects of products that are less visible, nonobvious, or inferred based on the child's goals or knowledge base. Gelman and Echelbarger (2019-this issue) provide a valuable perspective on this topic, reviewing research in child psychology that examines children's abilities to appreciate and value the inferred and nonobvious dimensions of objects, such as the object's history, authenticity, or scarcity. They show that children have surprising abilities to value these dimensions, with children as young as 5 years of age able to understand and value these inferred or nonobvious features of products.…”

Varieties of value: Children differentiate caring from liking

“…Most importantly for present purposes, ownership affects children's own regard for objects. They like their possessions more than objects that are not theirs and value them more in transactions-they show the "mere ownership" and "endowment" effects (e.g., Gelman et al, 2012;Harbaugh et al, 2001;Hartley & Fisher, 2018;Irwin & Gebhard, 1946; also see Gelman & Echelbarger, 2019). However, when attractiveness and ownership are pitted against one another, children usually give more weight to attractiveness-they like unowned attractive objects more than their own possessions, and similarly expect others to prefer attractive objects over their own (Gelman et al, 2012;Goulding & Friedman, 2018;Pesowski & Friedman, 2018;but see Gelman & Davidson, 2016 for an exception).…”