Trust and Consumers Acceptance of Genetically Modified Foods: A Laboratory Experiment Involving U'S'

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Trust and Consumers Acceptance of Genetically
Modified Foods A Laboratory Experiment
InvolvingU.S. and U.K. Subjects
Bert Morrow and Brett Hollett Birmingham-Southern
College Birmingham, Alabama USA

• Week 7 11 June 2003

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General Research Questions

• How do consumers make decisions about the foods
  that they eat?
• How do these decisions vary across cultures?

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More Specific Research Questions

• What factors influence consumers willingness to
  purchase genetically modified food products?
• Does the influence of these factors vary between
  U.S. and U.K. consumers?
•  

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What is trust?

• A belief that others will not act to exploit
  ones vulnerabilities.

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How does trust develop?

• Trusting behavior may be motivated primarily by
  strong positive affect for the object of trust or
  by good rational reasons why the object of
  trust merits trust, or, more usually, some
  combination of both. Trust in everyday life is a
  mix of feeling and rational thinking.

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Cognitive Trust

• Cognitive-based trust is grounded in a careful,
  methodical thought process that culminates in a
  general belief that an object, individual, group
  or organization is trustworthy.

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Affective Trust

• Affect means to have an effect on influence
  produce a change in.
• Affect can also refer to an emotion, feeling, or
  mood as a factor in behavior.
• Affective-based trust is grounded in ones
  instincts, intuitions or feelings that culminate
  in a general belief that an object, individual,
  group or organization is trustworthy.

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Descriptive StatisticsU.S. and U.K. Students
All student data are on a 7 point scale except
general trust which is on a 5 point scale.   p
lt .10 p lt .05
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Multiple Regression ResultsU.S. and U.K.
StudentsDependent Variable WTP
p lt .10 p lt .05
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Descriptive StatisticsU.S. and U.K. Adults
p lt .10 p lt .05   All adult data are on a 9
point scale.
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Multiple Regression ResultsU.S. and U.K.
AdultsDependent Variable WTP
p lt .10 p lt .05
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Conclusions

• U.S. students are more trusting of GM foods and
  have a more positive attitude toward technology
  than U.K. students.
• There are no differences between U.S. and U.K.
  students in their willingness to purchase GM
  foods.
• When comparing U.S. and U.K. adults, the opposite
  results were found.
• Among all students, general and affective trust
  were significant predictors of WTP. Cognitive
  trust and attitudes toward technology were not
  significant predictors.
• Among all adults, affective trust was a
  significant predictor of WTP. Cognitive trust and
  attitudes toward technology were not significant
  predictors.
• There is a lot of unexplained variation (about
  20) in U.K. students WTP relative to U.S.
  students.