Margaret EchelbargerAssistant Professor of Consumer Scienceshe/her/hers

I study how children develop as consumers, including how they come to understand money, ownership, and markets, and how that development is shaped by their social worlds. My research examines topics such as psychological ownership, children’s sensitivity to cues like variety, and how parent-child conversations about money shape children’s financial attitudes and behavior. I am motivated by a broader interest in promoting consumer well-being across the lifespan, with particular attention to how early experiences with money set the stage for financial capability and agency later in life.

I care deeply about doing research that reaches beyond academic journals and into the communities it studies. My work has been featured in outlets such as TIME for Kids, AARP, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal, and I regularly write and speak for public audiences to make developmental science accessible and useful to parents, educators, and practitioners. I also value connecting directly with families, sparking kids’ excitement about science, and sharing insights that caregivers can act on to help their children grow into thoughtful consumers. Across my research and public scholarship, I aim to do work that is rigorous, transparent, and grounded in the everyday lives of the people it is meant to serve.

Selected Publications

Echelbarger, M., & Epley, N. (2023). Undervaluing the positive impact of kindness starts early. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(10), 2989–2994.

Echelbarger, M., Maimaran, M., & Gelman, S. A. (2020). Children’s variety seeking in food choices. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 5(3), 322–328.

Echelbarger, M., Gelman, S. A., & Kalish, C. W. (2019). Getting what you pay for: Children’s use of market norms to regulate exchanges. Child Development, 90(6), 2071–2085.

Smith, C. E., Echelbarger, M., Gelman, S. A., & Rick, S. I. (2018). Spendthrifts and tightwads in childhood: Feelings about spending predict children’s financial decision making. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 31(3), 446–460.

Echelbarger, M., & Gelman, S. A. (2017). The value of variety and scarcity across development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 156, 43–61.

For a full list of publications, see Echelbarger’s CV.

Featured Media

• WSJ Your Money Briefing, How Online Currency is Changing the Way Kids Spend Money
• The Conversation, Children, Like Adults, Tend to Underestimate How Welcome Their Random Acts of Kindness Will Be
• Million Bazillion (Marketplace), Saving Money is Really Hard to Do
• Chicago Booth Review, Kids Can Have Their Cake and Their Broccoli Too