Procter and Gamble, Strombeek Bever, Belgium.
Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 30;15(12):e0244481. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244481. eCollection 2020.
Liquid laundry capsules have been involved in multiple poisoning incidents with young children in the home. There are a range of contributing factors for these incidents, including influences from industry, culture, home environments, and parenting/supervision. There also are influences from children's behaviour and decisions in reaction to potential hazards. Previous research examined the influence of capsule product appearance and colour on children's behaviour around hazardous household items, but little research examines the influence of product size. This research explored if differences in the size of liquid laundry capsules result in different levels of toddler interaction. We compared two commercially available capsule designs that are identical in physical appearance but differ in physical size. Our research was conducted using three studies: Study 1, forced-choice test in an out-of-context laboratory setting; Study 2, an ecologically-valid, simulated real-world setting replicating a home laundry cabinet with a container of capsules left open; and Study 3, a second ecologically-valid study replicating a home laundry cabinet, this time with a capsule left outside its container. Capsule interaction was measured by grasping choice among samples of 156 toddlers ages 9-36 months. The same sample was used for Studies 1 and 2, and a second identically sized sample recruited for Study 3. Results from Study 1 indicated toddlers selected the small (49.8% selection) and large (50.2%) capsule with nearly identical frequency. Study 2 largely replicated Study 1: Toddlers selected the small capsule or container of small capsules 26.8% of the time and the large capsule or container of large capsules 22.3% of the time. Study 3 also replicated previous findings: Toddlers selected the smaller capsule 18.0% of the time and the larger 19.2%. We discuss study results, which suggest no appreciable difference in toddler's grasping choice to smaller versus larger laundry capsules.
液体洗衣胶囊在家中多次涉及儿童中毒事件。这些事件有一系列的促成因素，包括行业、文化、家庭环境和育儿/监督的影响。还有儿童对潜在危险的行为和决策的影响。以前的研究考察了胶囊产品外观和颜色对儿童接触危险家庭物品行为的影响，但很少研究考察产品尺寸的影响。这项研究探讨了液体洗衣胶囊尺寸的差异是否会导致幼儿互动程度的不同。我们比较了两种商业上可用的胶囊设计，它们在物理外观上是相同的，但在物理尺寸上有所不同。我们的研究包括三项研究：研究 1，在非上下文实验室环境下进行的强制选择测试；研究 2，在模拟现实世界的生态环境中，在打开的装有胶囊的容器中进行的复制家庭洗衣柜的实验；研究 3，在第二个生态环境中复制家庭洗衣柜的实验，这次是将胶囊留在容器外。通过对 9-36 个月大的 156 名幼儿的样本进行抓取选择，来测量胶囊的互动情况。研究 1 和 2 使用了相同的样本，研究 3 则招募了第二个相同大小的样本。研究 1 的结果表明，幼儿选择小（49.8%的选择）和大（50.2%）胶囊的频率几乎相同。研究 2 在很大程度上复制了研究 1：幼儿选择小胶囊或小胶囊容器的次数为 26.8%，选择大胶囊或大胶囊容器的次数为 22.3%。研究 3 也复制了之前的发现：幼儿选择较小胶囊的次数为 18.0%，选择较大胶囊的次数为 19.2%。我们讨论了研究结果，这些结果表明，幼儿对较小和较大洗衣胶囊的抓取选择没有明显差异。
