סמינר בשיווק
The Effect of Saliency on Children’s Choice and Consumption
Michal Maimaran' Northwestern University
We study how changing the relative frequency of an object in a choice set affects young children's decision making. In food and non-food choice tasks, we find that four to five year old children are more likely to choose an object when its relative frequency in the choice set decreases. Adults do not show such tendency. In a consumption task, in which children are offered a plate with carrots and crackers, we find that reducing the quantity of carrots relative to the total quantity of food offered increases the relative consumption of carrots. We propose that reducing the relative frequency of an item in the choice set increases its saliency, and hence it becomes more attractive to young children.