Developing as Consumers

To introduce three perspectives used by marketing researchers and practitioners to explain how children develop as consumers : o a classic developmental-stage based perspective which focuses on the progressive acquisition of economic knowledge by children o a widespread process-centered model which aims at explaining how children interact with socialization agents to acquire economic abilities o a more recent framework drawing on cultural psychological theory that suggests that children are immersed in the realm of mass consumption culture To discuss the cornerstone elements of these three models and the contrasting explanations they propose about the learning processes through which children develop as consumers To delineate new research avenues in order to account for the creative capacities of children when they participate in joint consumption activities