Some Legal Issues in Consumer Behavior Research

Researchers frequently publish studies inspired by laws or regulations and often, the authors hope to be affecting public policy. In doing so, they draw upon and address aspects of law. Most of these scholars, however, have no special training in law, and all too often, the consequence is a manuscript that is replete with misstatements of law and faulty suppositions. Useful policy research requires understanding of not only the behavioral concepts but also the legal ones. To illustrate our point, we used examples from the United States and Romanian legislation as well, focused particularly on deceptive advertising. We placed the errors of construction, precision and evidence into the larger context of consumer behavior as a relevant field for research and the advertising directed to children, as particularly subject to misinterpretation and errors.