Responsibility allocation for child injury: victim age and positive vs. negative framing of manufacturer's safety policy

Abstract

Two experiments examined allocation of responsibility in the context of a fictitious, but realistic, product-use scenario in which a young girl suffers serious brain injury after consuming a product with a non-obvious hazard (marshmallows). The research investigated whether the responsibility allocated to the various parties would depend on the age of the child and whether the manufacturer took, or failed to take, precautions. Scenarios given to participants stated the age of the girl as 1½ years, 4 years, 8 years, or 16 years and had positive, negative, or no supplemental information about the manufacturer and its safety practices. Both experiments showed that the parents were considered most responsible for a young child's injury, but the allocation decreased with the older child. When negative information about the manufacturer's safety practices was given, allocations of responsibility for the girl's injury to the manufacturer increased significantly. In Experiment 2, the presence of warnings in the positive supplemental information condition reduced the manufacturer's responsibility for the oldest (16-year old) child. Negative impressions due to poor safety practices by manufacturers can lead to increased levels of responsibility allocated for injury. Primary caretakers are responsible for the safety of young children, but as they get older, children are viewed as being more responsible for their own safety. These results have implications for product-development decisions including labelling. They also point out a role for human factors professionals before and during product-related forensic litigation.

Keywords:

• responsibility allocation
• child injury
• warnings
• litigation
• framing

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin J. Williams

Kevin Williams is professor of psychology at the University of Albany, State University of New York. His major areas of research are human motivation and performance, where he studies the self-regulatory processes that guide goal strivings and goal revision over time, and the psychology of blame, where his work explores the social-cognitive processes that underlie the allocation of blame for accidents. He received his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of South Carolina.

Michael J. Kalsher

Michael J. Kalsher is currently associate professor of psychology and cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He earned BS and MS degrees in applied/experimental psychology at Montana State University, completed a four-year internship in the Division of Behavioral Psychology at the John F. Kennedy Institute at Johns Hopkins, and earned a PhD in industrial/organizational psychology at Virginia Tech. Since coming to Rensselaer, Dr Kalsher has carried out and published nearly one-hundred peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on a variety of applied topics in a number of related fields within psychology, including industrial/organizational psychology and human factors, the majority of which have focused on issues related to warnings and risk communication, including the role of safety symbols and pictorials in communicating safety information. Kalsher is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and has represented HFES as its voting member of the ANSI Z535 committee since 2003, and as the chair of the Z535.3 sub-committee since 2012. 

Michael S. Wogalter

Mike Wogalter is professor emeritus of psychology at North Carolina State University. He has interests in warnings and risk communication, forensic human factors, and human–machine interaction. He received his PhD from Rice University and his bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia.