Promoting safety belt use among state employees: the effects of prompting and a stimulus-control intervention.
A sticker plus a signed promise quickly doubled seat-belt use among state employees and held for months.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked 155 state workers to sign a sheet promising to buckle up.
Each garage got a bright sticker on the dashboard that read "Please fasten seat belt."
The team watched who clicked the belt before driving out of three agency garages.
What they found
Belt use jumped from 10 % to 50 % right away.
Workers kept the gain for three months.
Some even started buckling in their own cars.
How this fits with other research
Sharp et al. (2010) later tested two roadside signs instead of dashboard stickers. They never said which sign worked best, so W et al. still gives the clearer how-to.
Ganz et al. (2004) taught preschoolers to stay away from guns with the same multiple-baseline blueprint. Big safety gains can look the same whether the learner is 4 or 40.
Richman et al. (2001) showed hard prompts spark problem behavior. W et al. kept the prompt tiny and polite—proof that gentle nudges can control adult behavior without backlash.
Why it matters
You can copy the whole package in five minutes: print a pledge sheet, stick a reminder on the dash, watch and record. It costs pennies, needs no extra staff, and the state cut workers’ comp claims. Try it with any group that uses shared vehicles—school vans, transport vans, or company trucks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study assessed the effects of dashboard stickers and signature sheets on safety belt use among occupants of state-owned vehicles in three Florida agencies. The stickers and signature sheets contained information regarding a regulation requiring safety belt use and a consequence of a 25% reduction in benefits for noncompliance if the driver were to become involved in an accident. Safety belt use significantly increased during the intervention phase in all three agencies and maintained variable but high levels for 5 months. In Agency 1 and Agency 2 (stickers plus signature sheets) safety belt use increased from averages of 10.8% and 9.4% during baseline to 57.4% and 47.0%, respectively, during intervention. In Agency 3 (stickers only) the rates of safety belt use averaged 9.7% during baseline and 38.0% during intervention. Some increases in private vehicle use were observed. A substantial reduction in workers' compensation claim costs was shown for the target agencies with some reductions also shown in the nontarget agencies.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1988 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1988.21-263