Deterrent and Experiential Effects in Perceptual Deterrence Research: a Replication and Extension

Abstract

The present research is a replication of the Saltzman et al. study concerning deterrent and experiential effects in perceptual deterrence research. Despite certain design differences in the two studies (e.g., we used a shorter lag between Time One and Time Two), our findings replicate theirs in that (1) perceptions of risk are not particularly stable, even over a period as short as three months, and (2) experiential effects are consistently larger and more often significant than deterrent effects. Both in our data and in the Saltzman et al. data, we find interactions which specify the experiential effect as most likely to occur among those with initially high perceptions of risk (a naiveté effect) rather than among those for whom a given form of behavior is new (a novelty effect), as Saltzman et al. had contended. We conclude that the substitution of experiential effects for deterrent effects is not justified, that studies which have done so are moot on the subject of deterrence, and that longitudinal designs may be essential for resolution of the causal order problem.