PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Warning of potential side effects of a product can increase its sales

2013-09-24
(Press-News.org) Drug ads often warn of serious side effects, from nausea and bleeding to blindness, even death. New research suggests that, rather than scaring consumers away, these warnings can improve consumers' opinions and increase product sales when there is a delay between seeing the ad and deciding to buy or consume the product.

"Messages that warn consumers about potentially harmful side effects — presumably with the intent to nudge them to act more cautiously — can ironically backfire," says psychological scientist Ziv Carmon of INSEAD in Singapore.

Working with Yael Steinhart of Tel Aviv University and Yaacov Trope at New York University, Carmon has been exploring how adding a warning of potential side effects affects consumer decision making. Their new findings are published in the September 2013 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"We were struck by just how detailed, clear, and scary many warnings had become with regard to potential negative side-effects of products," says Carmon. "It then occurred to us that such warnings might perversely boost rather than detract from the appeal of the risky product."

Carmon and colleagues tested their hypothesis in four experiments. In one experiment, for example, smokers saw an ad for a brand of cigarettes: one version of the ad included a warning that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema, while another version did not include the warning.

Predictably, participants who had the opportunity to purchase the cigarettes soon after seeing the ad bought less if the ad they saw included the warning.

In contrast, participants who were given the opportunity to purchase the cigarettes a few days later bought more if the ad included the warning. The same outcome emerged when the researchers ran a similar experiment with ads for artificial sweeteners.

According to Carmon and his colleagues, the warnings backfired because the psychological distance created by the delay between exposure to the ad and the customer decision made the side effects seem abstract—participants came to see the warning as an indication of the firm's honesty and trustworthiness.

In fact, participants evaluated drugs for erectile dysfunction and hair loss that had potentially serious side effects more favorably, and as more trustworthy, when they were told the products weren't on the shelves yet.

While conventional wisdom suggests that explicit warnings about dangerous side effect will make people think twice before taking medical risks, these findings suggests otherwise. The researchers believe that their findings are important because these kinds of warnings are so ubiquitous, accompanying many different products or services beyond medications, including medical procedures, financial investments, and sporting activities.

Given how frequently we are exposed to such warnings, Carmon hopes to bring greater attention to their potential to backfire.

"This effect may fly under the radar since people who try to protect the public — regulatory agencies, for example — tend to test the impact of a warning shortly after consumers are exposed to it," says Carmon. "By doing so, they miss out on this worrisome delayed outcome."

### For more information about this study, please contact: Ziv Carmon at ziv.carmon@insead.edu.

The article abstract is available online at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/24/9/1842.abstract

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Warnings of Adverse Side Effects Can Backfire Over Time" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Patient heal thyself: Solution to treatment for chronic infections could lie in patient's blood

2013-09-23
1. A recent discovery by scientists at A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS), in close collaboration with researchers at the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), provides hope for a new personalised treatment strategy that could use a patient's own blood to treat the infection. This could help treat millions of people living with chronic infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C. These findings were published in the August 2013 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2. Patients suffering from chronic infections often have to undergo ...

Smile!

2013-09-23
A brighter, better, longer-lasting dental implant may soon be on its way to your dentist's office. Dental implants are posts, usually made of titanium, that are surgically placed into the jawbone and topped with artificial teeth. More than dentures or bridges, implants mimic the look and feel of natural teeth. While most dental implants are successful, a small percentage fail and either fall out or must be removed. A scientist at Michigan Technological University wants to lower that rate to zero using nanotechnology. "Dental implants can greatly improve the lives of ...

Propofol discovery may help lead to development of new anesthetics

2013-09-23
New research on the most commonly used anaesthetic drug could help to unravel a long-standing mystery about how it induces a pain-free, sleep-like state. General anaesthetics are administered to tens of millions of people every year in hospitals, where they are used to sedate patients undergoing surgery. Despite this, scientists have yet to understand how the drug interacts with its targets in brain cells to achieve this effect. Following years of research on propofol, which has become the most commonly used anaesthetic since it was introduced in the 1980s, researchers ...

Immune system fights infection with performance enhancement

2013-09-23
Researchers in Melbourne, Australia, have found that even our immune system is subject to performance enhancement, with our bodies giving immune cells the boost they need to ensure the best team is selected to fight infections. The discovery could help in developing new treatments for blood diseases such as leukaemia and autoimmune diseases in which the body attacks its own tissues, such as in diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis. It could also be used to enhance immune response to HIV and other chronic infections. The finding, by researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall ...

Climate change nothing new in Oz

2013-09-23
While we grapple with the impact of climate change, archaeologists suggest we spare a thought for Aboriginal Australians who had to cope with the last ice age. "The period scientists call the Last Glacial Maximum, or LGM for short, is the most significant climatic event ever faced by humans on this continent," Associate Professor Sean Ulm from James Cook University in Cairns said. Research recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science sheds new light on the ways Aboriginal civilisation met the challenges of extreme climate change during the Last Glacial ...

Richness mapping and prediction of amphibians in Southern and Central China

2013-09-23
Systematic conservation planning is a multiple-objective process. Identification of important areas and species with high conservation priority is two of the research objectives. China is one of mega-biodiversity countries of the world. Along with rapid economic development and environmental degeneration, native and endemic species of China are confronting growing threats in the last two decades. It is an urgent agenda to set up relevant conservation policies, researches and decision supports so as to better reduce extinction risks of vertebrate animals of China. Amphibians ...

Encouraging outcomes for pediatric brain tumor patients treated with proton therapy

2013-09-23
Atlanta, September 22, 2013—When used to treat pediatric patients with intracranial malignant tumors, proton therapy may limit the toxicity of radiation therapy while preserving tumor control, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. Typically, central nervous system malignancies are treated with surgical resection and post-operative radiation therapy. Proton therapy, an external beam radiation therapy in which protons deliver precise radiation doses to a tumor, offers significant sparing of ...

Sulfasalazine does not reduce diarrhea for patients receiving pelvic radiation therapy

2013-09-23
Atlanta, September 22, 2013—Patients receiving radiotherapy (RT) for cancers in the pelvic region can experience diarrhea, a negative side effect of radiation treatment. Sulfasalazine, an oral tablet used to treat inflammation of the bowels, had been shown in a past trial of 31 patients to decrease diarrhea during pelvic RT (Killic 2001). Sulfasalazine does not reduce diarrhea, according to research presented today at the American Society of Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. The study also determined that the medication may be associated with a higher ...

Cisplatin combined with high-dose brachytherapy for advanced cervical cancer may be more beneficial

2013-09-23
Atlanta, September 22, 2013 — Adding the chemotherapy drug cisplatin to a treatment plan of radiation therapy (RT) and high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDRB) for stage IIIB cervical cancer is beneficial, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. The study also indicated that the combined treatments produced acceptable levels of toxicity. The randomized, controlled trial studied a total of 147 women in Brazil with stage IIIB squamous cell cervical cancer. A stage IIIB classification indicates that ...

Proton therapy is a cost-effective treatment for pediatric brain tumor patients

2013-09-23
Atlanta, September 22, 2013—Proton therapy, an external beam radiotherapy in which protons deliver precise radiation doses to a tumor and spare healthy organs and tissues, is cost-effective in treating medulloblastomas, fast-growing brain tumors that mainly affect children, when compared to standard photon radiation therapy, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. The study used a first-order Monte Carlo simulation model to examine a population of 18-year old survivors of medulloblastoma brain ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] Warning of potential side effects of a product can increase its sales