Some psychologists cry foul as peers help
advertisers target young consumers.
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, multi-million 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 Wright 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 up-in-arms 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 7-year-olds gravitate toward toys that
transform themselves into something else and why 8- to
12-year-olds 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 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
Washington, 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 well-being, 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 Whiton 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. What Paine does have a problem with is driving
psychologists out of the business.
"If you remove ethical psychologists from the
decision-making 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.
"We 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 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 "What Kids Buy and Why: 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 black-and-white 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 Washington, D.C.
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