Children are exposed to advertisements and products that incorporate familiar characters, such as Dora the Explorer and Bob the
Builder, virtually from birth. How does the presence of these characters influence children’s judgments about information and products? Three experiments (N= 125) explored how 4-year-olds
evaluate messages from familiar characters and how their trust
in a familiar character’s testimony relates to their product preferences. Children endorsed objective and subjective claims made
by a familiar character more often than those made by a perceptually similar but unfamiliar character even in situations where they
had evidence that the familiar character was unreliable. Children
also preferred low-quality products bearing a familiar character’s
image over high-quality products without a character image up
to 74% of the time (whereas control groups preferred the low-quality products less than 6% of the time when they did not include a
character image). These findings suggest that young children are
powerfully influenced by familiar characters encountered in the
media, leaving them vulnerable to advertising messages and clouding their judgments about products