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Socioeconomic Background andChildren's Cognitive Abilitiesin Relation to TelevisionAdvertisementsVictor Giudicatti a & Bruce W. Stening aa The University of Western Australia , AustraliaPublished online: 02 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Victor Giudicatti & Bruce W. Stening (1980) SocioeconomicBackground and Children's Cognitive Abilities in Relation to Television Advertisements,The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 106:2, 153-155, DOI:10.1080/00223980.1980.9915181

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Published as a separate and in The JOUWZQ~ of Psychology, 1980, 106, 153-155 .

SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND AND CHILDREN’S COGNITIVE ABILITIES I N RELATION T O

TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS” The University of Western Australia

VICTOR GIUDICATTI AND BRUCE w. STENING’

SUMMARY This study examined the relationship between Australian children’s age

and socioeconomic background, on the one hand, and seven dimensions of their cognitive abilities in relation to television advertisements, on the other. The sample comprised 165 6-to-8- and 9-to-12-year-old male and female children. Both age and socioeconomic status correlated significantly and positively with six of the dimensions.

A. INTRODUCTION An important question facing a number of diverse groups in our society

(educators, child psychologists, media managers, and parents, to name a few) is that concerning the ability of children to understand the nature and intent of television commercials. The question has received some empirical attention through the use of age as an independent variable (1). For instance, previous studies have consistently found a positive relationship between children’s age, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ability to differentiate between programs and commercials (2 , 8, 9) and the ability to recognize the selling objective of commercials (3, 9). The same attention has not been given to an independent variable of possibly equal impor- tance, the socioeconomic background of the child. The study reported here sought to fill that void while also examining, in the Australian context, the robustness of previous findings attesting to the importance of age.

Specifically, this study investigated the relationship between age and socioeconomic status of children and seven dimensions of children’s cogni-

* Received in the Editoral Office on Au ust 11, 1980, and published immediately at

Requests for reprints should be sent to the second author at the address shown at the end Provincetown, Massachusetts. Copyright by %he Journal Press.

of this article.

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154 JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

tive abilities in relation to television advertisements. The seven dimensions were based on previous studies ( 2 , 3, 7) and encompassed: 1) cognition of the conceptual nature of commercials; 2 ) awareness of the sponsor source of commercials; 3) ability to discriminate between programs and commercials; 4) awareness of the selling objective of commercials; 5) perception of an audience for commercials; 6) awareness of symbolic representation tech- niques in commercials; and 7) ability to discriminate between the commer- cial message and the product being advertised.

B. METHOD The sample comprised 165 children drawn from two elementary schools

in the metropolitan area of Perth, capital of Western Australia. The chil- dren fell into two age groups: 6-to-8- and 9-to-12-year-olds (n = 88, M = 7.06 yr., S D = .68 and n = 7 7 , M = 11.43 yr. , S D = .65, respectively). There were approximately equal numbers of males and females in each group. The socioeconomic background of each child was determined using Duncan’s Socioeconomic Status Scale (4). All the children lived within an area served by three television stations, one noncommercial, two commer- cial. All but two children lived in homes with television sets.

For reasons principally associated with another aspect of the project, the children were exposed to a simulated television viewing situation. A 12- minute children’s television program was screened, in which six 30-second food and toy advertisements were interspersed at three regular intervals. On the day following the screening, interviews were conducted with each child concerning, among other things, his or her perceptions of television commercials in general. The responses, in terms of the seven dimensions discussed here, were coded as ordinal level data by the interviewers.

C. RESULTS

The relationship between age and socioeconomic status and the seven cognitive dimensions was investigated by means of Spearman correlation coefficients. Age correlated significantly and positively (p < .001) with all but dimension 5 , while socioeconomic status correlated significantly and positively (p < .04) with all dimensions except 6. Of the 21 interitem correlations, all but one were significantly intercorrelated (p < .03).

D. DISCUSSION The findings of previous American studies demonstrating a positive

relationship between age and the cognitive abilities of children in relation

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VICTOR GIUDICATTI AND BRUCE W. STENING 155

to television commercials were confirmed for each of the seven dimensions with the exception of perception of an audience for commercials. Further, the study established the importance of socioeconomic background in rela- tion to the cognitive abilities of the children with respect to all seven variables except awareness of the symbolic representation techniques in commercials. This is a finding of considerable importance. Since children of lower socioeconomic status watch more television on average than their counterparts from higher socioeconomic backgrounds ( 5 , 6), they are at an even greater disadvantage in relation to the latter group.

REFERENCES 1. ADLER, R. (Ed.). Research on the Effects of Television Advertising on Children. Wash-

ington, D.C.: U.S. Gov. Print. Off., 1977. 2 . BLATT, J., SPENCER, L., & WARD S. A cognitive development study of children’s

reactions to television advertising. In E . A. Rubinstein, G. A. Comstock, & J. P. Murray (Eds.), Television and Social Behavior. Vol. 4 . Television in Day-to-Day Life: Patterns of Use. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov. Print. Off., 1972, 452-467.

ROBERTSON, T. S., & ROSSITER, J. R. Children and commercial persuasion: An attribu- tion theory analysis. J. Consumer Res. , 1974, 1, 13-20.

ROBINSON, R., ATHANASIOU, R. & HEAD, K. Measurement of Occupational Attitudes and Occupational Characteristics. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Survey Res. Center, 1969.

SCHRAMM, W., LYLE, J., & PARKER, E. B. Television in the Lives of Our Children. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1961.

TINDALL, K., & REID, D. Television’s Children. Sydney, Australia: Sydney Teachers College, 1975.

WARD, S. Effects of television advertising on children and adolescents. In E. A. Rubin- stein, G. A. Comstock, & J. P. Murray (Eds.), Television and Social Behavior. Vol. 4 . Television in Day-to-Day Life: Patterns of Use. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov. Print. off., 1972, 432-452.

WARD, S., REALE, G. , & LEVINSON, D. Children’s perceptions, explanations and judg- ments of television advertising: A further exploration. In E. A. Rubinstein, G. A. Comstock, & J. P. Murray (Eds.), Television and Social Behavior. Vol. 4 . Television in Day-to-Day Lijee: Patterns of Use. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov. Print. Off., 1972, 468-490.

WARD, S., & WACKMAN, D. B. Children’s information processing of television advertis- ing. In F. G. Kline, & P. Clark (Eds.), New Models for Mass Communication Research. Vol. 2 . Sage Annual Reviews of Communication Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1973, 119-146.

Department of Management The University of Western Australia Nedlands, Western Australia 6009

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