Many studies in the field of risk perception and acceptance of hazards include trust as an explanatory variable. Despite this, the importance of trust has often been questioned. The relevant issue is ...not only whether trust is crucial but also the form of trust that people rely on in a given situation. In this review, I discuss various trust models and the relationship between trust and affect heuristics. I conclude that the importance of trust varies by hazard and respondent group. Most of the studies use surveys that provide limited information about causality. Future research should focus more on experiments that test whether trust is a consequence of people's attitudes or influences their attitudes toward a technology. Furthermore, there is a need for a better understanding about the factors that determine which heuristics people rely on when evaluating hazards.
Numerous studies and practical experiences with risk have demonstrated the importance of risk perceptions for people's behavior. In this narrative review, we describe and reflect upon some of the ...lines of research that we feel have been important in helping us understand the factors and processes that shape people's risk perceptions. In our review, we propose that much of the research on risk perceptions to date can be grouped according to three dominant perspectives and, thus, approaches to study design; they are: the characteristics of hazards, the characteristics of risk perceivers, and the application of heuristics to inform risk judgments. In making these distinctions, we also highlight what we see as outstanding challenges for researchers and practitioners. We also highlight a few new research questions that we feel warrant attention.
Cultured meat is a novel food technology that promises to produce meat in a more environmentally friendly and animal-friendly way. We conducted an internet survey in ten countries (Australia, China, ...England, France, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the US) with a total sample of 6128 participants. Results suggest that there are large cultural differences regarding the acceptance of cultured meat. French consumers were significantly less accepting of the idea than consumers in all other countries. Perceived naturalness of and disgust evoked by cultured meat were important factors in the acceptance of this novel food technology in all countries. Trust in the food industry, food neophobia and food disgust sensitivity indirectly and directly influenced the acceptance of cultured meat in almost all countries. In order to increase the acceptance of cultured meat, the similarity of cultured meat to traditional meat needs to be emphasized rather than the rather technical production process, which may evoke associations of unnaturalness and disgust.
Consumers' food selections have a large impact on the environment. In this study, we examined how consumers evaluated the environmental impact of various foods. Furthermore, we investigated whether ...the perceived environmental effect of foods, health consciousness, and food disgust sensitivity would be related to the consumption of meat substitutes and organic meat. We used data from the Swiss Food Panel 2.0 for our analyses (N = 5586 participants from the German- and French-speaking part of Switzerland). The participants mistakenly perceived the environmental impact of soy-based meat substitutes as similar to that of conventionally produced meat. The results suggested that consumers with low meat consumption, perceptions about the high environmental impact of meat, high health consciousness, low disgust sensitivity, and who were female, younger, and better educated were more likely to consume meat substitutes compared with people who had the opposite attributes. Perceived environmental impact of conventionally produced meat, health consciousness, being female, age, income, and education had a positive impact on consumption of organic meat. Disgust sensitivity had a negative effect. The relatively low negative correlation between meat and meat substitute consumption implies that the substitution effect may not be as large as hoped for in the transition to more sustainable food behavior. However, our results also indicate that increasing consumer knowledge about the environmental impact of foods may lead to more sustainable food consumption.
Four experiments examined some factors influencing the perceived naturalness of food products and their biasing effect on risk perception. The results of Experiment 1a showed that three food ...additives displaying their respective E-numbers (i.e., codes for food additives in the European Union and Switzerland) decreased perceived naturalness. Experiment 1b demonstrated that mentioning possible health effects decreased the perceived naturalness of a plant-based food additive. This experiment further showed that it would not matter for perceived naturalness whether the food was synthetic or nature-identical. Moreover, the results of Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that the same risk associated with meat consumption was much more acceptable for traditionally produced meat compared with in-vitro meat. Experiment 3 further indicated that the perceived naturalness of the meat (i.e., traditional or cultured meat) had a full mediation effect on participants' evaluation of the acceptability of the risk of colon cancer associated with the meat consumption. Even if the new production method (i.e., cultured meat) was more environmentally friendly and less harmful to animals, the perceived lack of naturalness might reduce the acceptability of the risk associated with such a product. The present study provides evidence that consumers rely on symbolic information when evaluating foods, which may lead to biased judgments and decisions.
The SARS‐CoV‐2 virus that causes COVID‐19 has had a large impact on the lives of many people worldwide. At the peak of confirmed COVID‐19 cases during the first wave in Switzerland (March–April ...2020), we conducted a survey in the German‐speaking part of the country (N = 1,585). The results suggest that the implemented measures are accepted. The survey participants are more concerned that other family members could catch the virus compared with themselves, and they are worried about its economic impact. The results suggest that how trust is measured is crucial because general trust and social trust have opposite effects on the participants’ risk perceptions. People with high general trust perceive less risks associated with COVID‐19 compared with people who have low general trust, and people with high social trust perceive more risks compared with people who have low social trust. The results further indicate that perceived risks are important drivers for the acceptance of the government's implemented measures to control COVID‐19 and for more precautionary behavior (i.e., contact with fewer people and more hygienic behavior). Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
•Personality directly and indirectly via eating styles influenced food choices.•Openness to experience fostered consumption of fruits, salad and vegetables.•Conscientiousness promoted fruit ...consumption by promoting restrained eating.•Conscientiousness prevented unfavorable food choices by reducing overeating styles.•Neuroticism promoted unfavorable food choices by promoting overeating styles.
In a random sample (N = 951) from the general population, direct and indirect effects of the Big Five personality traits on eating styles and food choices were examined. Path models revealed that high openness to experience were associated with higher fruit, vegetable and salad and lower meat and soft drink consumption. High agreeableness was associated with low meat consumption. Neuroticism, conscientiousness and extraversion significantly and directly influenced eating styles and significantly indirectly influenced food choices. Conscientiousness mainly promoted fruit consumption by promoting restrained eating and prevented meat consumption by reducing external eating. Conscientiousness prevented consumption of sweet and savory foods, and of sugar-sweetened soft drinks by promoting restrained eating and reducing external eating, and consumption of sweet and savory foods also by reducing emotional eating. Neuroticism promoted consumption of sweet and savory foods by promoting emotional and external eating. Extraversion promoted sweet and savory, meat and soft drink consumption via promoting external eating. Results suggest that neurotic and emotionally unstable individuals seem to adopt counter-regulatory external or emotional eating and eat high-energy dense sweet and savory foods. Highly conscientious individuals adopt regulatory dietary restraint and practice counter-regulatory emotional or external eating less, resulting in more consumption of recommended and less consumption of not recommended food. The higher sociability of extraverted people, which is basically a health beneficial psychological resource, seems to have health-averse effects. Personality traits are stable; however, the resulting more proximal, counter-regulatory eating styles such as emotional or external eating might be more successfully addressed in interventions to prevent overeating and overweight.
•The Chinese have more favourable attitudes towards insects as food.•The Chinese reported a higher willingness to eat insects compared to the Germans.•The Germans were more willing to eat processed ...compared to unprocessed insects.•The impact of food neophobia on the willingness to eat insects was equally high in both countries.
Based on their high nutritional value and low production costs, insects are an excellent and sustainable source of animal protein. In contrast to countries such as China, in Western societies, the consumption of insects is not rooted in traditional diet. Data for the present study was collected from adults in Germany (n=502) and China (n=443). A cross-cultural comparison was conducted based on consumers’ willingness to eat different insect-based, processed (e.g., cookies based on cricket flour) and unprocessed (e.g., crickets) food. The influence of food neophobia on consumers’ willingness to eat insects was examined. The Chinese rated all insect-based food more favourably with regard to taste, nutritional value, familiarity and social acceptance compared with the Germans. Also, they indicated greater willingness to eat the tested food products, and no differences were observed between their ratings of processed and unprocessed food. The Germans reported higher willingness to eat the processed insect-based foods compared to the unprocessed foods. Further results revealed that low scores for food neophobia, positive taste expectations, high scores for social acceptance and experiences with eating insects in the past were significant predictors of consumers’ willingness to eat insects in both countries. Consequently, the introduction of insects as a food source in Western societies seems more likely to succeed if insects are incorporated into familiar food items, which will reduce neophobic reactions and negative attitudes towards insect-based foods.
People may use simple heuristics to assess the healthiness of food products. For instance, the information that a product contains “fruit sugar” (in German, “fruit sugar” is the colloquial term for ...fructose) could be interpreted as a cue that the product is relatively healthy, since the term “fruit” symbolizes healthiness. This can have a misleading effect on the perceived healthiness of a product. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 164) were asked to evaluate the healthiness of one of two breakfast cereals based on the information provided in a nutrition table. For one group, the label “fruit sugar” was used; for the other, the label “sugar” was used. Results suggest that the phrase “fruit sugar” listed as an ingredient of the breakfast cereal resulted in a more positive perception of the healthiness of the cereal compared with the ingredient labeled “sugar.” In Experiment 2 (N = 202), the results of Experiment 1 were replicated with a within-subjects design in which participants evaluated the two products simultaneously. Experiment 3 (N = 251) ruled out the alternative explanation that the effect could be due to differing inferences about the product's ingredients based on the label used, that is, that the product labeled with “fruit sugar” contains fruit. Finally, in Experiment 4 (N = 162), the results show that the healthiness associated with the labeling of the ingredient “sugar” (“fruit sugar” vs. “sugar”) mediates the observed effect. Results of the four experiments indicate that symbolic information is an important factor that can influence people's health perceptions of food. These findings have implications for marketing and public health.
•Symbolic information influences people's health perceptions of foods.•Using the label “fruit sugar” instead of “sugar” increases perceived healthiness of foods.•The healthiness associated with ingredients' labeling affects health perception of foods.•Health consciousness does not reduce the biasing effect of symbolic information.
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