Product Warnings Research Articles

Product Warnings at Issue in ESU Damage Lawsuit

Product Warnings at Issue in ESU Damage Lawsuit

Injury Severity and Likelihood in Warnings

Two experiments examined the influence of injury likelihood and severity in warnings on product hazard perceptions (Experiment 1) and behavioral compliance (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants were given a set of front panel labels for 10 household consumer products. Warnings on the labels were constructed by manipulating the likelihood (low vs. high) and severity (low vs. high) of injury. Labels lacking a warning served as controls. Participants rated the product labels under the guise of a marketing study in which most of the questions concerned product familiarity, cost, and label attractiveness. Only one question was of interest which probed the level of hazard posed by the products. The results showed that (1) the presence of a warning increased the products' judged level of hazard, (2) products with high severity warnings were viewed to be more hazardous than products with low severity warnings, and (3) likelihood of injury in the warnings had no influence on hazard perceptions. Experiment 2 used a chemistry laboratory demonstration task to test the effects of injury likelihood and severity in a warning on compliance behavior (i.e., wearing gloves as directed by the warning). Greater compliance was shown when warned of a more severe injury, but only when the injury was of lower likelihood. In general, both experiments showed that injury severity influences warning effectiveness to a greater extent than injury likelihood. The results suggest that to inform people of a hazard and to motivate them to comply with a directed behavior, product warnings should communicate the severity of consequences.

The Use of Vivid Stimuli to Enhance Comprehension of the Content of Product Warning Messages

Thousands of consumers are injured annually using consumer products. It is intuitively plausible that vivid product warnings may improve communication of the hazards associated with product use, yet vividness effects have been difficult to demonstrate empirically. Vivid product warnings are shown to increase accurate memory of the hazards associated with product use by enhancing cognitive elaboration on the content of a product warning message. Moreover, vivid product warnings may not, in and of themselves, generate negative elaborations regarding the safety of the product in question.

Consumer Product Warnings: Review and Analysis of Effectiveness Research

This paper provides a critical review of recent research (1984-1988) on the effectiveness of consumer product warnings. The majority of available data come from laboratory studies of college students, and wide variations in effectiveness have been reported. The perceived hazardousness of the product, its familiarity, and the ease of complying with the warning all appear to be important factors. Some preliminary trends have emerged concerning the contribution of various message attributes; however, these factors do not appear to be as important as the user's product-related expectations. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Consumers' Information Processing Objectives and Effects of Product Warnings

Based on human information processing theory it was hypothesized that consumers' information processing objective would influence the amount of time they devoted to examining product labels, their memory for product safety information, and as a result, the likelihood they would comply with safety recommendations. More specifically, it was expected that compared to consumers with an impression-set processing objective, consumers with a memory-set processing objective would: 1) devote more time to examining product labels; 2) recall more safety-related information; and 3) be more likely to comply with safety recommendations. Results provided unequivocal support for the first two hypotheses and only partial support for the third hypothesis.

Cuing Hazard Information for Consumer Products

Rice University undergraduates were given cued and non-cued consumer product questionnaires in order to determine the degree to which product cues would elicit user hazard knowledge, as measured by the number of generated accident scenarios. The difference in the number of scenarios generated by the two groups was not found to be statistically significant. However, there did exist a relatively strong, and significant, relationship between the number of generated accident scenarios and reported hazardousness, degree of precaution that would be taken, and the likelihood of reading the warnings associated with the product. The relationship between the production of known accident information in the form of accident scenarios and these dimensions is thought to have implications for the content of product warnings.

Layout, Organization, and the Effectiveness of Consumer Product Warnings

Three experiments are presented examining the effects of warning layout (spatial structure) and organization (semantic structure) on the readability and memorability of warning information. In Experiment 1 these factors were tested in a 2 (levels of layout) x 3 (levels of organization) factorial design. The two levels of layout were the typical paragraph format and an experimental version having the appearance of an outline. Warning content was organized according to hazard, type of statement, or randomly. Warnings were ranked according to three criteria; eye appeal, ease of processing, and effectiveness. In general, warnings in outline layout and type of hazard organization were ranked as having greater eye appeal, easier to process, and more effective than alternative organization-layout conditions. In Experiments 2 and 3, only warning layout was manipulated and a cover story was used to elicit reading and compliance behaviors likely to occur in the home. Experiment 2 results indicate that, when asked to read the warnings, subjects spent less time reading warnings in paragraph layout than warnings in oultine layout. In Experiment 3, the decision to read the warning was at the discretion of the subjects. Results indicated that warnings in outline layout were read and complied with by a larger proportion of subjects than warnings in paragraph layout. Implications for warning design and future research are discussed.

Factors Affecting Consumers' Perceptions of Product Warnings: An Examination of the Differences between Male and Female Consumers

This study utilized a survey to investigate several factors that may influence consumers' perceptions of warnings. The purpose of this research was twofold: 1) to partially replicate a previous study of college undergraduates to see if similar results would be obtained in a random sample of consumers, and 2) to determine if these factors are significantly different depending on the sex of the consumer. Subjects rated twelve products according to: dangerousness, familiarity, their willingness to read a warning, need for a warning, and location of the warning. The results of this research are similar to those of the original study, therefore, the undergraduates can be considered a good indicator of the general consumer population. Further analysis showed differences in the perception of warnings between male and female consumers. Females are more likely to feel a product should have a warning and are more likely to read a warning despite the perceived dangerousness of the product than are males. The likelihood of males reading warning labels depends on the perceived dangerousness and familiarity of the product.

Evaluating the Life Cycle of a Product Warning

The effect of the saccharin warning label on sales of diet soft drinks was modeled with an autoregressive integrated moving average (A RIMA) process. Retail price trends and attendant publicity were modeled concurrently to separate these effects from those due to the warning. Results indicated that the label produced a small yet statistically significant reduction in sales, with an abrupt onset and, thus far, permanent duration. Reasons for the absence of decay effects, limitations of interpretability, and ideas for improving future evaluations of warning labels are discussed.

Language in the Legal Process: Linguistic Evidence . Language, Power, and Strategy in the Courtroom. William M. O'Barr. Academic Press, New York, 1982. xvi, 192 pp. $23.50. Studies on Law and Social Control.

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction: Language in the Legal Process J.Cotterill PART I: THE LINGUIST IN THE LEGAL PROCESS To Testify or Not to Testify? R.W.Shuy Whose Voice Is It? Invented and Concealed Dialogue in Written Records of Verbal Evidence Produced by the Police M.Coulthard Textual Barriers to United States Immigration G.Stygall The Language and Law of Product Warnings P.M.Tiersma PART II: THE LANGUAGE OF THE POLICE AND THE POLICE INTERVIEW 'I Just Need to Ask Somebody Some Questions': Sensitivities in Domestic Dispute Calls K.Tracy & R.R.Agne So...? Pragmatic Implications of So-Prefaced Questions in Formal Police Interviews A.Johnson 'Three's a Crowd': Shifts in Dynamics in the Interpreted Interview S.Russell The Miranda Warnings and Linguistic Coercion: The Role of Footing in the Interrogation of a Limited-English Speaking Murder Suspect S.Berk-Seligson PART III: THE LANGUAGE OF THE COURTROOM I: LAWYERS AND WITNESSES 'Just One More Time...': Change and Continuity in Courtroom Narratives in the Trials of OJ Simpson J.Cotterill 'Evidence Given in Unequivocal Terms': Gaining Consent of Aboriginal Young People in Court D.Eades The Clinton Scandal: Some Legal Lessons from Linguistics L.M.Solan Understanding the Other: A Case of Mis-Interpreting Culture-Specific Utterances at Alternative Dispute Resolution R.H.Moeketsi PATY IV: THE LANGUAGE OF THE COURTROOM II: JUDGES AND JURIES The Meaning of 'I Go Bankrupt': An Essay in Forensic Linguistics S.Bernstein 'If You Were Standing in Marks and Spencers': Narrativization and Comprehension in the English Summing-Up C.Heffer Reasonable Doubt about Reasonable Doubt: Assessing Jury Instruction Adequacy in a Capital Case B.K.Dumas Discipline and Punishment in the Discourse of Legal Decision on Rape Trials D.de C.Figueiredo Index

Warnings on Consumer Products: Objective Criteria for their use

Consumer product warnings, often placards, buzzers, etc., are information displays that attempt to influence user behavior through the information presented. A review and background of warnings is presented. Assumptions underlying their employment and the lack of scientific validation of their effectiveness are discussed. Quantitative criteria are proposed for the use of warnings based on risk analysis. Examples of such analysis are presented. The limited information processing capability of man dictates that warnings be reserved for significant risks in the context of the products use, environment, and risks from other products. Contraindications for use of warnings are discussed.

Human Factors in the Design of Effective Product Warnings

Warning messages for product use are important for the safety of the user and to fulfill the legal duty to warn on the part of the manufacturer. A number of issues related to the design of such warnings have been neglected by human factors specialists. The studies that have been done have been primarily for private companies or in conjunction with litigation after an accident has occurred. Thus, little is available in the open literature. This paper points out some related behavioral work which has been published and outlines the problems associated with designing effective product warnings. Suggestions are made for further research.