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Advertising to Children? Is It Ethical?

In: English and Literature

Submitted By saral0ve
Words 555
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Advertising to children: Is it ethical? This articles primary focus is whether or not it is unethical to direct advertising towards children. The author, Rebecca A. Clay leans towards the stand point of it being unethical for companies to direct advertising towards children of a young age. It is not simply that she feels that advertising towards young children is unethical rather more so the use of psychology to manipulate the under developed minds of the young children.
In the article, points against using the skill of psychology are primary collected from a single source, which she refers to multiple times, (Allen D. Kanner, PhD.) She does mention that he is a part of a group of 60 psychologists’ that sent a controversial letter to the APA, protesting involvement in advertising towards children. But fails to list any other sources demonstrating a study of impact that advertising has on children. For example, another credible source of information to assist her points of the damaging effects can have on children and their parents is from, Wilcox, professor of psychology and director of the Center on Children, Families and the Law at the University of Nebraska. Wilcox mentions, “When I talk to parents they are quite concerned about advertising effects on their children. They have to live with children making unreasonable purchasing request from the advertisement they see- toys they want, food that is not good for them. This can be difficult for parents to manage.” Offering this viewpoint demonstrates not only the effect on the child, but also the effects this may have on the child and parent relationship. Granted, Kanner is very vocal, as well a credible source about his views of Fortune 500 companies’ use of psychologist in developing advertising targeted towards the youthful minds. It would have been more informative to see additional sources sharing his views, not just the amount of sales in which she mentions in the closing of this section of the article.
The section highlighting, “Driving out psychologist” the author listed sources of psychologists that are for, against, and “on the fence” the use of psychology in advertising. By doing this the Arthur showed the variants of the views of other psychologist’s. Interesting point made by, Whiton S. Paine, PhD, a professor of business studies at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, N.J., ”If you remove ethical psychologists from the decision-making process in an ad’s creation, who’s left?’ “People who have a lot less sensitivity to the unique vulnerabilities of children.” She also notes how other psychologists feel such as, Daniel S. Acuff, PhD, who feels the letter to the APA is “unconstitutional”, along with this being a misguided overgeneralization of the topic. Overall, this is a very well developed research paper. Even though the general feeling we get from the author is that she is primary against the use of psychology in advertising towards children, she also list view points from both parties’ sides of the topic.

Works Cited
Dittman, Melissa. http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/protecting.aspx. American Psychological
Association, June 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. <http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/protecting.aspx>.
Clay, Rebecca A. Advertising to children: Is it ethical?. American Psychological Association, Sept. 2000. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. <http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep00/advertising.aspx>.

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