Protecting the children – A virtual reality experiment on consumers’ risk perception of household chemicals: A virtual reality experiment on risk perception of household chemicals

However, scientific findings have called the effectiveness of warnings to prevent accidents into question, albeit mostly based on consumers’ self-report. This study aims at contributing to the existing data on household chemicals and consumer safety by applying a novel observational method using Virtual Reality (VR).

Study participants (N = 119) were observed after receiving the task to child-proof a virtual apartment with various interactable neutral and hazardous objects (i.e., knifes, lighters, household chemicals with and without warnings) that were placed in the virtual apartment. For the analysis, the object placement (i.e., accessible or inaccessible to children) and the level of interaction with the object were coded; the observational data was supplemented with data gathered in a questionnaire.