Cognitive Development may appear to be a unified discipline or organic cooperation among several disciplines; however, the research shows chasms between fields devoted to the study of human development. The four reviewed articles show differing approaches to developmental studies, with varying degrees of effectiveness. The level of effectiveness appears to hinge on the scholar's willingness to use a generous number of approaches to the analysis of human development.
Harris, J.L., Brownell, K.D., & Bargh, J.A. (2009). The Food Marketing Defense Model: Integrating Psychological Research to Protect Youth and Inform Public Policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 3(1), 211-271.
Harris et al. review the negative effects of food advertising targeted at youth, results of various studies regarding that phenomenon, and then suggest a possible defense model to counteract the powerful impact of food advertisers. They begin by attributing the "obesity epidemic" at least in part to advertising encouraging individuals to eat food high in calories and low in nutrition (Harris, Brownell, & Bargh, 2009, p. 212). They then review the scope and impact of food marketing targeting children and adolescents, reporting densely supported and stunning statistics based on studies by private researchers and by governmental bodies such as the FTC. For example, they report that: more than $1.6 billion was spent on television advertising directed at U.S. children in 2006; 98% of food ads are for foods high in sugar, fat and/or sodium; advertisers have moved significantly into non-TV advertising as well, spending more than half of their youth-targeting budgets on advertising in schools, on the internet, on toy giveaways, on promotional packaging, on ad placement in movies, in music, in video games, in sponsorships of sports and other events, and in cross promotions. Also, according to this report, advertisers rely on children's "pester power" to compel their parents to buy advertised products (Harris, Brownell, & Bargh, 2009, pp. 213-216). Harris et al. then review modern theories of social cognitive development; citing research by Bargh & Ferguson in 2000, Dijksterhuis, Chartrand and Aarts in 2007, Strack and Deutsch in 2004 and Willson and Bar-Anan in 2008, this article states stating that repeated exposure to food advertising can "lead directly to beliefs and behaviors without active, deliberate processing of the information presented" (Harris, Brownell, & Bargh, 2009, p. 217). Harris, et al. then propose a new defense model to protect children and adolescents from marketing ploys. The model consists of four conditions:
"(1) Awareness, including conscious attention to individual marketing stimuli and comprehension of their persuasive intent; (2) Understanding of the effects resulting from exposure to stimuli and how to effectively defend against those effects; (3) Ability, including cognitive capacity and available resources to effectively resist; and (4) Motivation, or the desire to resist" (Harris, Brownell, & Bargh, 2009, p. 218).
This article is very strong in its broad use of recent studies in a thoughtful and well-supported article backed by a thorough review of sources, scholarly articles, government statistics and studies in social development, cognitive development, social cognitive development and neuroscience. The scope and depth of the authors' research is impressive and convincing; what is more, they offer an excellent model for sales resistance, essentially "fighting fire with fire" by educating the targeted audience in the cognitive processes and manipulations used by advertisers. The authors' generous use of reliable information from many fields of human examination create a valuable source of synthesized information and approaches.
Lieberman, M.C. (2005). Principles, Processes and Puzzles of Social Cognition: An Introduction for the Special Issue on Social Cognitive Neuroscience. NeuroImage, 745-756.
Lieberman's article concentrates on five principles of social cognition and behavior, including: "the power of the situation over behavior," which is the basic social psychological concept that circumstances can powerfully affect behavior; "blindness for situational influences," which is the second basic psychological concept that people are not aware circumstances' powerful impact on behavior; "social perception and self-perception are constructive processes," which is a third social psychological concept that perception is as much a products of the mind's organization as it is an accurate impression of reality; "blindness for the constructed nature of social and self-perception," the social psychological concept that we believe we see reality rather than our perception of reality; and "self-processes are social," the social psychological concept that we undergo all these processes within the highly social contexts of friends, family, community, city, nation, and so forth (Lieberman, 2005, pp. 746-748).
Lieberman also examines four processes of social cognition, including: "cognitive architecture," which leads us to develop self-supporting stereotypes and biases; the dual process models of "automaticity and control," with automatic processes being those efficient and seemingly unconscious,...
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