In 1978, two Canadian social scientists got a bunch of four- and five-year-old kids and divided them into two groups. The first group was shown no commercials. The second group was shown two commercials for a particular toy. Then they offered these four- or five-year-old kids a choice. They told them: You have to choose, now, to play with one of these two boys here. You can play with this little boy who has the toy from the commercials—but we have to warn you, he’s not a nice boy. He’s mean. Or you can play with a boy who doesn’t have the toy, but who is really nice. If they had seen the
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