Processing fluency and framing effects on the perceived risk of prescription medications

Prescription medication abuse has been on the rise in recent years. Keuhn (2006) found that although illicit drug abuse has decreased, prescription medication misuse has increased in adolescents and emerging adults and the CDC (2013) has found an increase in nonmedical use of prescription medications for peoples aged 12 and older. In the present studies, the role of processing fluency was used as a framework to explain this recent influx of prescription medication misuse. Study 1 was a replication of Alter and Oppenheimer (2006), where the relationship between the ease of pronunciation of real prescription medication names and the 2013 first quarter sales of prescription medications was assessed. Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Song and Schwarz (2009), in which differences in risk perception between the ease of pronunciation of novel prescription medication names. Study 1 yielded a positive relationship between the fluency of medication names and their sales figures, whereas Study 2 found no significant difference between high and low fluency and risk perceptions of novel prescription medication names. Implications and limitations are discussed in the General Discussion.