Question

In a recent study, researchers wanted to examine the effects of food logos and packaging on children's taste preferences. The study sought to discover if children believe that food from McDonald's tastes better than the same food from a grocery store. Researchers asked 63 children (3-5 years of age) to taste five different foods, chicken nuggets, a hamburger, french fries, baby carrots and milk. The chicken nuggets, hamburger and french fries were all from McDonald's. The carrots and milk were from a grocery store. Each type of food as divided into two portions. One portion was wrapped in a McDonald's wrapper or placed in a McDonald's bag. The second portion was given to the children in a wrapper or bag without the McDonald's logo. Therefore, the children tested each of the five foods twice-once in McDonald's packaging and once with generic packaging. Can you guess what these researchers found? Overall, children preferred the taste of foods and drinks they thought were from McDonald's. After taste-testing, the children said the chicken nuggets, fries, carrots and milk wrapped in the McDonald's logo tasted better than the foods in grocery store packaging even though the foods were exactly the same. Critical Thinking Questions. Please answer in COMPLETE sentences. 1. What factors do you think contribute to children's belief that food from McDonald's tastes better? What role is placed by family, society, and the media in the formation of this belief? 2. The children is this study were very young. Do you think researchers would find the same results with children older or teenagers? Why or why not? 3. What are the consequences of the children's beliefs about McDonald's food? Can you think of strategies for changing such beliefs? Do you think such efforts could be effective?

Answer 1

Possible solution

1. What factors do you think contribute to children's belief that food from McDonald's tastes better? What role is placed by family, society, and the media in the formation of this belief?

Possible factors are associated to the benchmarking and the position of the McDonalds around the world, culture, social media and beliefs about which food taste better

The role of the famili, society and media is very important since constitute the beliefs of the people

2. The children is this study were very young. Do you think researchers would find the same results with children older or teenagers? Why or why not?

It could be, but not neccessary since the behavior of very young people is not the same of teenagers but probably the results would be very similar

And the reason is because in the society exists an idea created behind the Mcdonals brand and that tend to create bias around the opinions of the people

3. What are the consequences of the children's beliefs about McDonald's food? Can you think of strategies for changing such beliefs? Do you think such efforts could be effective?​

For this case the most important consequences are associated to the non use of other brands that provides a similar product but are not positioned like McDonals , is like a Monopoly controled by Mcdonalds.

Possible strategies are for example show comparisions between the products and showing evidence that both are similar.

And probably these efforts can help but is neccessary a big work in order to deal with this topic