Consumer products cause millions of injuries every year at a total cost of billions of dollars in medical costs, lost wages and reductions in quality of life. To prevent injuries, manufacturers often place warnings on dangerous products and materials with information about proper handling and possible injuries. In order for a warning to be effective, it must be seen, read, comprehended, and followed. A breakdown iu any of these stages will hinder the warning from preventing an injury. This study is a naturalistic investigation of warning compliance behavior. It evaluates the effects of a user's perceptions ofthe product risk and his/her familiarity with the product and brand on the nature of his/her hehavior. Products were pretested to determine the familiarity and perceived risk of the products with the general user population. This data was verified with the participants in the data collection phase of the study to insure the validity of the results. Participants' familiarity with the product and their perceptions of the product's inherent risk had a significant effect on the number of safe behaviors from the warning with which they complied. Users complied with more safe behaviors when using products that were perceived as risky compared to other products of the same class that were perceived as less risky. Similarly, users complied with more safe behaviors when using brands with which they were more familiar compared to those of the same product class with which they were less familiar.

In industries such as manufacturing, warehousing, and transportation, worker safety is often compromised when workers do not use safe lifting methods. However, the track record of training programs that provide information about safe lifting methods is mixed. Individual compliance with workplace lifting training can vary greatly. Many studies have shown that even in programs that lead to high retention of the trained information, workers often do not use the safe methods when they return to their jobs. This study evaluated the effects of several individual characteristics that were hypothesized to affect compliance. Demographic, anthropometric and personality characteristics were related to compliance with a trained safe lifting method. The implications for these differences on future training research are discussed.