Abstract
In this paper, we investigated educated millennials’ evaluation of credence attributes in food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO products). Our goal is to assess whether beliefs about GMO products are determined by scientific knowledge alone or if they are affected by other factors such as trust in information providers and use of social media. The focus on millennials is motivated by the increasing relevance of this social group in the public debate and by their extensive use of social media. We surveyed a sample of 215 Italian college students, confronting them with questions about safety, environmental impact and ethical issues in GMO product consumption. Using an ordered probit regression model, we found that educated millennials build their beliefs using a mix of scientific knowledge and trust in information providers. The role of the two drivers depended on the issue considered. Scientific knowledge drove beliefs in health claims, while trust in information providers was a driving factor in almost all claims. After controlling for trust effects, we did not find evidence of impact of confidence in the reliability of traditional and social media on beliefs. This result contradicts previous literature.
Highlights
We investigate how educated millennials build their beliefs about credence attributes of food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO products)
The questions were presented in the form of statements related to GMO product credence attributes and focused on three areas: safety, environmental and ethical issues
We find empirical evidence of a trust effect in the evaluation of issues related to GMO product environmental impact (Table 3)
Summary
We investigate how educated millennials build their beliefs about credence attributes of food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO products). Existing literature provides conflicting results regarding their beliefs (e.g., [3,4,5,6]) and their attitude towards GMO products is still an open question [7]. Our study hypothesis is that educated millennials’ beliefs about GMO product credence attributes are not determined by scientific knowledge alone. Because the scientific debate regarding GMO products is complex, consumers may be unable to verify information and their evaluation might be based on their trust in the information providers (such as environmental associations, farmers, etc.) and the media [8,9,10]. The study question is of particular importance because consumption decisions based on incorrect information provided by interested parties might result in a market failure [11]
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