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A d v e rtis in g to c h ild re n : Is it e th ic a l?
Som e psychologists cry foul as peers help advertisers target young consum ers.
By REBECCA A. CLAY
September 2000, Vol 31, No. 8
Print version: page 52
FEATURE
Som e psychologists cry foul as peers help advertisers target young consum ers.
BY REBECCA A. CLAY
Ever since he first started practicing, Berkeley, Calif., psychologist Allen D. Kanner, PhD, has been asking his younger
clients what they wanted to do when they grew up. The answer used to be "nurse," "astronaut" or some other occupation
with intrinsic appeal.
Today the answer is more likely to be "make money." For Kanner, one explanation for that shift can be found in advertising.
"Advertising is a massive, multimillion dollar project that's having an enormous impact on child development," says Kanner,
who is also an associate faculty member at a clinical psychology training program called the W right Institute. "The sheer
volume of advertising is growing rapidly and invading new areas of childhood, like our schools."
According to Kanner, the result is not only an epidemic of materialistic values among children, but also something he calls
"narcissistic wounding" of children. Thanks to advertising, he says, children have become convinced that they're inferior if
they don't have an endless array of new products.
Now Kanner and several colleagues are upinarms about psychologists and others who are using psychological
knowledge to help marketers target children more effectively. They're outraged that psychologists and others are revealing
such tidbits as why 3 to 7yearolds gravitate toward toys that transform themselves into something else and why 8 to 12
yearolds love to collect things. Last fall, Kanner and a group of 59 other psychologists and psychiatrists sent a
controversial letter protesting
psychologists' involvement to APA.
In response, at its June meeting, APA's Board of Directors acted on a recommendation from the Board for the 11/1/2015 Advertising to children: Is it ethical?
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Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest and approved the creation of a task force to study the issue. The task
force will examine the research on advertising's impact on children and their families and develop a research agenda. The
group will look at the role psychologists play in what some consider the exploitation of children and consider how
psychology can help minimize advertising's harmful effects and maximize its positive effects.
The group will also explore implications for public policy. Task force members will be chosen in consultation with Div. 37
(Child, Youth and Family Services) and other relevant divisions.
Unethical practices?
The letter protesting psychologists' involvement in children's advertising was written by Commercial Alert, a W ashington,
D.C., advocacy organization. The letter calls marketing to children a violation of APA's mission of mitigating human
suffering, improving the condition of both individuals and society, and helping the public develop informed judgments.
Urging APA to challenge what it calls an "abuse of psychological knowledge," the letter asks APA to:
Issue a formal, public statement denouncing the use of psychological principles in marketing to children.
Amend APA's Ethics Code to limit psychologists' use of their knowledge and skills to observe, study, mislead or exploit
children for commercial purposes.
Launch an ongoing campaign to investigate the use of psychological research in marketing to children, publish an
evaluation of the ethics of such use, and promote strategies to protect children against commercial exploitation by
psychologists and others using psychological principles.
"The information psychologists are giving to advertisers is being used to increase profits rather than help children," says
Kanner, who helped collect signatures for the letter. "The whole enterprise of advertising is about creating insecure people
who believe they need to buy things to be happy. I don't think most psychologists would believe that's a good thing. There's
an inherent conflict of interest."
Advertisers' efforts seem to work. According to marketing expert James U. McNeal, PhD, author of "The Kids Market: Myths
and Realities" (Paramount Market Publishing, 1999), children under 12 already spend a whopping $28 billion a year. Teen
agers spend $100 billion. Children also influence another $249 billion spent by their parents.
The effect this rampant consumerism has on children is still unknown, says Kanner. In an informal literature review, he
found many studies about how to make effective ads but not a single study addressing ads' impact on children. Instead, he
points to research done by Tim Kasser, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. In a
series of studies, Kasser has found that people who strongly value wealth and related traits tend to have higher levels of
distress and lower levels of wellbeing, worse relationships and less connection to their communities.
"Psychologists who help advertisers are essentially helping them manipulate children to believe in the capitalistic message,
when all the evidence shows that believing in that message is bad for people," says Kasser. "That's unethical."
Driving out psychologists
Psychologists who help companies reach children don't agree. Take W hiton S. Paine, PhD, an assistant professor of
business studies at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, N.J. As principal of a Philadelphia consulting firm called Kid2Kid,
Paine helps Fortune 500 companies market to children.
Paine has no problem with launching a dialogue about psychologists' ethical responsibilities or creating standards similar to
ones used in Canada and Europe to protect children from commercial exploitation. Such activities will actually help his
business, he says, by giving him leverage when clients want to do something that would inadvertently harm children. W hat
Paine does have a problem with is driving psychologists out of the business.
"If you remove ethical psychologists from the decisionmaking process in an ad's creation, who's left?" he asks. "People
who have a lot less sensitivity to the unique vulnerabilities of children."
Others who have read the proposal point out that psychological principles are hardly confidential.
"W e can't stop alcohol or tobacco companies from using the basic research findings and theories found in textbooks and
academic journals," says Curtis P. Haugtvedt, PhD, immediate past president of Div. 23 (Consumer Psychology) and an
associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University in Columbus. "The same issue exists for all sciences: the
information is available in public libraries."
The problem with trying to regulate the use of psychological principles is that "people acting in ways psychologists find
objectionable probably aren't members of APA anyway," says Haugtvedt, who received a copy of the Commercial Alert
letter. He believes that having general guidelines as to appropriate uses and areas of concern would be beneficial to all 11/1/2015 Advertising to children: Is it ethical?
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Find this article at:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep00/advertising.aspx
parties.
Daniel S. Acuff, PhD, for example, draws on the child development courses he took during his graduate schooling in
education to advise such clients as Disney, Hasbro and Kraft. His book "W hat Kids Buy and W hy: The Psychology of
Marketing to Kids" (Free Press, 1997) draws on child development research to show product developers and marketers
how to reach children more effectively.
To Acuff, the letter to APA is not only an "unconstitutional" attempt to limit how professionals make their living but also a
misguided overgeneralization.
Since Acuff and his partner started their business in 1979, they have had a policy guiding their choice of projects. As a
result, they turn down assignments dealing with violent video games, action figures armed with weapons and other
products they believe are bad for children. Their work focuses instead on products that they consider either good for
children or neutral, such as snacks and sugary foods parents can use as special treats. The letter to APA fails to
acknowledge that psychological principles can be used for good as well as bad, he says.
"I don't agree with blackandwhite thinking," says Acuff, president of Youth Market Systems Consulting in Sherman Oaks,
Calif. "Psychology in itself is neither good nor bad. It's just a tool like anything else."
Rebecca A. Clay is a writer in W ashington, D.C.
