The Study of Children’s Understanding of Economic Causation According to Age Differences

Abstract

Children engage in many activities as consumers within the family. Children often use economic concepts in their social lives and drama activities. Although children use economic causation in their activities, our knowledge on children’s economic understanding is yet insufficient. Concerning children’s economic understanding, the participants (240 children, 6, 8 and 10 years old) were presented 9 stories. These stories were taken from a similar study produced by Siegler and Thompson (1998) and were adapted by taking some cultural characteristics into account. The data collected was the answers of students’ questions about the stories. Three experiments were performed: in the first experiment each story involved four variables; demand, supply, motivation and advertisement, in the second experiment variables were the effect of morality on the economic situation and in the third experiment affording, saving money, inexpensive and expensive were the variables. The results were examined according to variations such as age differences and were processed statistically.