The relative contributions of injury severity and likelihood information on hazard-risk judgments and warning compliance

Research suggests that people base their judgments of product hazardousness on perceptions of the severity of potential injury. However, other researc h suggests that people base their risk perceptions on the likelihood of bei ng injured. Four studies are presented that attempt to reconcile these find ings. Studies 1 and 2 investigated whether the discrepancy could be attribu ted to the particular item lists used in the respective research. Study 1 s howed that injury severity was the foremost predictor of perceived hazard i n one List, but that injury Likelihood was the best predictor in the other list. The two lists differed significantly on all the rating dimensions, su ggesting that the items in the lists are at least partly responsible for th e conflicting findings. Study 2, using a different set of items, confirmed that injury severity is the foremost predictor of hazard perceptions for co nsumer products. The last two studies examined the effects of injury Likeli hood and severity information in warnings on perceived product hazard and b ehavioral compliance. In Study 3, participants evaluated a set of product l abels under the guise of a consumer marketing study in which the conveyed l evels of injury severity and likelihood were incidentally manipulated. The results showed high severity warnings produced higher hazard ratings than l ow severity warnings. Injury likelihood produced no effect. Study 4 showed that a higher severity warning produced greater behavioral compliance than a low severity warning, but only for low injury likelihoods. Overall, this research: (a) provides an explanation for the conflicting results in hazard and risk perception research; and (b) demonstrates that injury severity is the primary determinant of lay persons' hazard perceptions for consumer pr oducts. The findings suggest that safety communications might have greater impact if they focused on injury severity, rather than (or to a lesser exte nt) the likelihood of getting hut. (C) 1999 National Safety Council and Els evier Science Ltd.