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THEORY OF MIND AND PRESCHOOLERS – RESPONSES TO MISLEADING ADVERTISEMENTS AND PRODUCT REPRESENTATION
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Cates, Carolyn
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Spring 2025
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2025
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Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to recognize that others have different beliefs and intentions (Premack & Woodruff, 1978), has been linked to certain aspects of children's understanding of advertisements including selling and persuasion intent (Lapierre, 2015; McAlister & Cornwell, 2009). However, this relationship has been primarily explored in older children, with inconsistent findings based on the ToM measures used. In addition, preschoolers' consumer responses to misleading advertisements such as endorsement or recommendation of deceptive products has been unexplored. Therefore, this study investigated whether preschoolers' ToM abilities relate to their understanding of advertising intent and their responses to misleading ads. Participants completed the Belief-Desire Scale to assess ToM (Wellman & Liu, 2004). Understanding of selling and persuasive intent, as well as consumer behavior in response to misleading ads, was assessed in a context of a task which required participants to view a commercial and answer questions. Results did not support that ToM was related to selling and persuasion intent or willingness to recommend a misrepresented object. However, children who performed better on false belief tasks were more likely to recognize misleading content in ads, lending some support that developing ToM skills may be important for understanding of advertisements in this age group.
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