Behavioral effectiveness of warnings

A paradigm was developed to examine the effectiveness of warnings .in a laboratory task. A task was presented to subjects as one examining how people perform a basic chemistry demonstration. Experiment 1 examined the effects of two locations of the warning (before and after Instructions) and two different signal word presentations (WARNING and Note). An additional condition with no warning or signal word served as a control. No effects were found on time or accuracy. However, compliance (use of mask and gloves) was affected by the inclusion of the warning as well as by its location. Greatest compliance occurred when the warning was placed prior to the instructions. Experiment 2 replicated the effect of location. The addition of a printed statement placed before the instructions (with warning at the end) to read through the instructions before beginning produced intermediate compliance that was not significantly different from the warning beginning and end conditions. Observation revealed that when the warning message was at the end of the instructions subjects complied only when they saw the warning message before starting the task. These results indicate that if warnings are placed In front of instructions the consumer Is more likely to read and comply.