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Preschoolers taste the same food in McDonald's wrappers
Stanford researchers gave 63 preschoolers identical foods in McDonald's or plain wrappers. The original abstract reports an overall preference for branded samples. The brand was a stimulus; the study does not establish company intent or sponsorship. A later reassessment also points to packaging appearance.
- Where it sits
- Academic psychologyResearch published for other researchers and students.
- Evidence level
- Independent experimentIndependent research, with its design and limits stated.
- Organizations
- McDonald’sAn organization is listed where the sources concern it. The text says exactly how.
- Sources inspected
- 3 of 32 with the relevant text, company document or archive item checked, 1 as an abstract or reference article, 0 not verified.
What happened
In 2007 Thomas Robinson and colleagues at Stanford reported a taste test with 63 children aged 3 to 5 from six Head Start centers in San Mateo County, California. Each child tasted five foods and drinks, each split into two identical portions. One portion was in McDonald's packaging and the other in similar unbranded packaging. The study appeared in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
The psychological idea
The design isolates the effect of packaging on perceived taste. Because the two portions were identical, any systematic preference for the McDonald's wrapper cannot come from the food. Children were asked whether the two tasted the same or which tasted better. A parent questionnaire gave home television and McDonald's exposure, which the researchers compared with the children's choices. McDonald's was a stimulus; the study did not test any McDonald's practice.
In practice
The foods were chicken nuggets, a hamburger and fries, from McDonald's, and baby carrots and milk from a grocery store. A news summary reports that significantly more children rated the McDonald's-wrapped version as tastier for the nuggets, fries, carrots and milk. It reports no result for the hamburger. Greater preference for the McDonald's-wrapped food went with more televisions at home and more frequent McDonald's visits.
Why it mattered
The study gave experimental evidence that a familiar brand name on packaging can change how very young children rate identical food. It is an independent academic study that used McDonald's as a stimulus, so it is evidence about children's responses and not about what any company intended.
Limits and qualifications
The original abstract and news reports were checked, but the full original paper was not read. Its abstract reports an overall preference score of 0.37 on a scale from minus one to plus one. The association with television and McDonald's visits is a correlation. The summary names Stanford's Department of Pediatrics, a Stanford prevention research unit and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation award as funders and does not mention McDonald's as a funder. A 2013 Canadian study of 65 preschoolers reported that children preferred foods in decorative wrappings and relied more on aesthetics than on familiar branding, so packaging appearance may matter as well as the brand.
Evidence behind the claims
A news summary of the 2007 study reports 63 children aged 3 to 5 from six Head Start centers in San Mateo County, California, who tasted foods split into two identical portions, one in McDonald's packaging and one in similar unbranded packaging, and said whether they tasted the same or which was better.
The foods were chicken nuggets, a hamburger and fries from McDonald's plus baby carrots and milk from a grocery store; the summary reports significantly more children rated the McDonald's-wrapped version tastier for the nuggets, fries, carrots and milk and reports no result for the hamburger.
The summary reports that greater preference for the McDonald's-wrapped food was associated with more televisions in the home and more frequent McDonald's visits, based on a parent questionnaire.
The summary names Stanford's Department of Pediatrics, the Stanford Prevention Research Center and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award as funding and does not mention McDonald's as a funder; it names the journal as Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, August 2007.
Elliott, Den Hoed and Conlon (2013) tested 65 preschoolers on five pairs of identical foods, one item in McDonald's packaging and the other in plain, Starbucks-branded or colorful unbranded packaging, and report that children preferred foods in decorative wrappings and relied more on aesthetics than on familiar branding.
The Elliott paper lists Robinson and colleagues (2007) in its references and was funded by the BMO Financial Endowment in Healthy Living and the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, with no conflicts declared; it does not report the 2007 study's methods or results.
The original abstract reports 63 children tasting five identical pairs and an overall mean taste-preference score of 0.37 on a scale from -1 (unbranded preference) to +1 (McDonald’s preference), significantly above zero.
People involved
- Thomas N. Robinson. Lead author, Stanford
- Dina L. G. Borzekowski. Co-author
- Donna M. Matheson. Co-author
- Helena C. Kraemer. Co-author
In the Psy101 course
- OpenStax Psychology 2e, section 2.3: Analyzing FindingsChapter 2, Psychological Research. Method. The section discusses this topic.Covers experimental logic and correlation versus causation, relevant to the paired design and the television-exposure association.
- OpenStax Psychology 2e, section 6.2: Classical ConditioningChapter 6, Learning. Context. Nearest related section; it does not discuss this topic by name.Nearest related section on associative learning; the section was not opened and no source read links the study to this mechanism.
This is course relevance only. It is not evidence for the historical or corporate claims on this page.See the full course map.
Sources and inspection
3 of 3 sources were opened and read at the level shown. A source marked as not verified supports no claim on this page by itself.
- [1]News summary of Robinson and colleagues on fast food branding and young children's taste, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent MedicineScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2007. News report. Secondary account.Relevant text checkedRead the news summary as returned by the fetch tool: participants, method, foods, results, correlations and funding lines. The page title is descriptive. This is not the paper; the paper's own funding and conflict statements were not seen.
- [2]Food Branding and Young Children's Taste Preferences: A ReassessmentElliott, C; Den Hoed, R; Conlon, M. Canadian Journal of Public Health (PubMed Central), 2013. Journal article. Critique or replication.Relevant text checkedRead the 2013 reassessment at PubMed Central as returned by the fetch tool: sample, design, main finding, reference list and funding. It does not describe the 2007 study's methods or results.
- [3]Effects of fast food branding on young children's taste preferencesRobinson, TN; Borzekowski, DLG; Matheson, DM; Kraemer, HC. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 161(8): 792-797 (PubMed record), 2007. Journal article. Primary source.Abstract or publisher record onlyCodex follow-up retrieved the PubMed-indexed abstract through web search: five identical pairs, 63 children, the -1 to +1 score and mean 0.37. Direct PubMed opening returned only a disclosure/cookie page; full paper was not read.
Access note: The initial review used the news summary and reassessment. A follow-up audit retrieved the original PubMed-indexed abstract, without reading the full paper; the source and exact scope are now listed.
Independent source review: Claude review agent, independent of the research agent, 2026-10-21. Verdict: pass-with-edits.