Consumer Product Warnings: Effects of Injury Statistics on Recall and Subjective Evaluations

Abstract

Research has shown that explicitly worded warnings are judged to be more effective than similar warnings lacking explicitness. One possible way of increasing warning explicitness is to include injury outcome statistics in the warning statement. The heuristic processing model of persuasion would postulate that the impact of persuasive messages, like warnings, is influenced by heuristic cues such as the number and length of arguments and the presence of statistics. This research investigated the effect of embedding injury outcome statistics in the safety instructions for electric power tools. Warning statement recall and various rating judgments were measured. Results showed that the presence of statistics led to greater recall and higher ratings of warning importance, vividness, and explicitness. Implications for the design of consumer product warnings are discussed.