Age Differences in Consumers' Search for Information: Public Policy Implications

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. We investigated whether consumers in their sixties (or older) can use nutritional information as accurately as younger consumers in a pair of studies, the first con-ducted in a supermarket setting, the second in a laboratory. Both studies indicate that, when shoppers are instructed to select a cereal according to specific nutritional criteria, elderly subjects are less likely than younger subjects to search intensely and to select an appropriate cereal. In the laboratory setting, however, the age-related differences diminished when subjects wrote down all the nutritional information acquired during their search. Age-related changes in information-processing ability may explain the findings. Implications for public policy are discussed. Jn 1990, when Congress updated the 1973 Food and Drug Administration labeling rule, it required food manufacturers to put more nutritional information on their labels. Although this rule was updated to make it easier for consumers to choose more nutritious foods, the literature on age differences in problem solving sug-gests that older consumers may not successfully search for and use this information. To investigate whether consumers in their sixties (or older) can use nutritional information as accurately as -younger consumers, we studied how different age groups utilize the information printed on the sides of cereal boxes. We also observed how supermarket shoppers and subjects in a computer laboratory solved a nutritional information problem: find a cereal that has less than 200 milligrams of sodium and at least 2 grams of fiber. We suspected that age differences would emerge for two reasons. First, the consumer behavior literature reports that as people age they tend to limit the amount of information they ob-tain about products prior to a brand choice decision (Beatty and Smith 1987). Second, the developmental literature suggests that an age-associated decline in working-memory capacity may adversely affect the ability of some older adults to solve problems.