Think-Aloud Process Superior to Thought-Listing in Increasing Children's Critical Processing of Advertising

This study develops and tests a model of children's critical processing of advertising. Within this model, 2 paths to reduced advertising susceptibility (i.e., attitude toward the advertised brand) were hypothesized: a cognitive path and an affective path. The secondary aim was to compare these paths for different thought verbalization processes: think-aloud and thought-listing. The model was tested on a sample of 8- to 12-year-old children (N = 163). Structural equation modeling revealed that, for children in the think-aloud group, both cognitive and affective paths were successful in reducing advertising susceptibility. However, for children in the thought-listing group, only the affective path was successful. These findings suggest that the think-aloud process increased children's motivation and ability to critically process advertising messages.