Children's consumer behavior in a store with unattractive merchandise: The “caveat emptorium”

Abstract

Eight- to ten-year-old children received $4.00 and were allowed to shop in an experimental store. Half received the money as payment for work while the remainder received it as a present. In an orthogonal manipulation, for half the children the store contained attractive merchandise while for the remainder the merchandise was unattractive. In addition, mothers responded to some questions about their children's economic socialization. We examined the effects of work condition, store condition, gender, and several variables derived from mothers' responses on amount of money spent in the store. Based on the results of earlier research, we predicted that children who received an allowance at home (vs. those who did not) would be “better” consumers, i.e., less likely to spend on unattractive merchandise. These results were found and were interpreted in terms of trust and expectations of responsibility communicated by the giving of allowance and their effects on economic socialization.