Effects of Explicitness in Conveying Severity Information in Product Warnings

Abstract

Manufacturers typically provide consumers with a warning message on the label of potentially hazardous products in order to encourage their safe use. Warnings often vary in explicitness and severity, where explicitness refers to the specificity of the stated injury consequences and severity refers to the harshness of the consequences. This study examined the nature of the relationship between explicitness and severity and explored changes in people's perceptions of four common consumer products as a result of exposure to warnings that varied on these two dimensions. The results show that explicitness and severity are related. The results also demonstrated that exposure to explicit warnings produced an increase in rated severity of injury and intent to act cautiously with a product. Overall this study suggests that, unless they are explicit, warnings on common consumer products may not change perceptions and subsequent intentions to act cautiously.