A Methodological Taxonomy for Warnings Research

Abstract

Beginning with several empirical papers in the late 1970's, there has been considerable research concerned with assessing the effectiveness of such attempted safety interventions as on-product warnings and safety signs. The focus of research on warnings has shifted from a debate on whether warnings work to systematic investigation of the factors that do or could influence safety-related product-user behavior. From the perspective of safety, the logical test of a warning must be reduction of the frequency and/or severity of accidents and injuries. A taxonomy of available research methods is described; strengths and problems associated with each method are discussed. Although research on topics related to warnings may legitimately address a wide variety of psychological issues, informed safety policymaking should rely primarily on well-controlled real-world studies. Within the restricted aim of making unambiguous contributions to generalizations that can inform safety policy, some methodological cautions are appropriate for both researchers and practitioners.

Behavioral Compliance with Safety Signs and Labels: An Analysis of Research Methods from the Past 25 Years

“…As a step beyond the taxonomy developed by Ayres et al (1992), each study was further categorized by its dependent measure based on whether the study measured behavioral compliance and/or intention/predicted likelihood of compliance. The latter (intention/predicted likelihood of compliance) was further subdivided by whether the study measured participants’ predictions of their own compliance (i.e., intentions) or participants’ predictions of the likelihood of compliance of others.…”

“…Each included study was categorized according to the methodological taxonomy developed by Ayres, et al (1992). Categories distinguished between studies that were conducted in a laboratory (or other contrived environment) versus experiments or observations conducted in real-world situations with unsuspecting participants.…”

“…The current paper provides a descriptive analysis of trends in applied research on safety signs and labels, rather than a formal meta-analysis or theoretical framework. As such, the current paper provides a much-needed literature review update of applied behavioral compliance research published from 1998 to 2022, continuing the use of the methodological taxonomy used by Ayres, et al (1992, 1998) to categorize the studies reviewed. The current paper also expands the taxonomy by examining both behavioral compliance and intention/predicted likelihood of compliance measures.…”

Fifty Years of Warning Researchers

“…The studies selected for review -laboratory, out-of-order signs, or safety warnings outside the laboratory -can have a major effect on conclusions reached about the behavioral effectiveness of warnings; in particular, reviews based on real-world behavioral results have found little evidence of effectiveness (e.g. Ayres et al, 1992;Ayres et al, 1998), whereas reviews based primarily on laboratory studies are more optimistic (Cox et al, 1997;Argo & Main, 2004).…”

A Taxonomy for Secondary In-Vehicle Tasks Based on Eye Glance and Task completion Time

“…Taxonomies have been developed to help researchers and practitioners better understand various issues such as pedestrian injuries (Schofer et al, 1995), safety-related work behavior (DeJoy, 1993), warnings (Ayres, Gross, Horst, & Robinson, 1992), mental models (Moray, 1996), pilot training tasks (Meyer, Laveson, Weissman, & Eddowes, 1975), and web design (Cheong & Shehab, 2003) to name a few. However, the development of detailed taxonomies for driverrelated issues is not as abundant.…”