Product Evaluations and Injury Assessments as Related to Preferences for Explicitness in Warnings

Increasing concern about the impact on-product safety information has on sales of a product has focussed attention on consumer decision making as a new area within which to carry out warnings research. Examples of this new research domain include efforts aimed at exploring the relationships between anticipated purchase decisions and the level of detail with which a warning describes consequences of using a product. The level of detail with which consequences are described in a warning is referred to as the explicitness of the warning. In the research reported here, an attempt was made to examine purchase preferences for explicit warnings in the context of cost-benefit tradeoffs made among fictitious products varying in societal value and potential harm. Seventy-three subjects were presented with brief written descriptions of seven products, each having associated with it a unique injury. Explicit and nonexplicit warnings accompanied each product description. Using a questionnaire, subjects evaluated each product in terms of its value to society and indicated whether it should be made available for sale in the United States. They then assessed the severity of the injury and the degree to which they felt it could be controlled by taking the proper precautions. Finally, subjects indicated which warning (explicit or nonexplicit) they would prefer on the product they were to buy. Overall, it was found that products having more detailed, or explicit, consequence information were overwhelmingly preferred. Other patterns indicated that greater purchase preferences for explicit warnings existed when products were considered high in societal value, ought to be sold in the U.S., and when injuries were construed as being controllable. These findings suggest that explicit warnings do influence anticipated purchases of products about which there exists uncertainty concerning product-related danger. This influence appears to be contingent upon perceptions about the costs and benefits associated with the product.