J. K. Sax and N. Doran, “Ambiguity and Consumer Perceptions of Risk in Various Areas of Biotechnology.” Journal of Consumer Policy 42(1): 47-58, March 2019 [gated copy here].
• Biotechnology-driven consumer goods such as vaccines, fluoridated water, and foods produced with GMOs seem particularly susceptible to exaggerated views of health and safety risks. Does ambiguity aversion drive these risk misperceptions?
• A survey with 14 scenarios is administered to 318 American adults with at least a high school education. Four questions attempt to measure the respondent's underlying ambiguity aversion. These questions are followed up with a series of items concerning views on vaccines, organic foods, bottled water, and embryonic stem cells, where at least one response to each item is (treated as) inconsistent with the consensus scientific view.
• These preliminaries are succeeded by vignettes about fluoridated water, GMO foods, and so on, where the information presented is either conflicting or less-than-complete. The respondents rate the scenarios on the basis of risks and benefits, where the most positive response would view the scenario as one holding great benefit at low risk.
• The idea is that scientists often are willing to assign low risk/high benefit status to various innovations even in the absence of complete information, or in the presence of some conflicting information. Do the respondents behave similarly, and does being more ambiguity averse in general lead to more pessimistic assessments of such innovations?
• People view ambiguity concerning food to be particularly off-putting. Nonetheless, respondents who prefer bottled water to fluoridated tap water tend in other domains to go with the scientific consensus.
• The bottom line, from the Abstract (p. 47): "Participants who reported greater aversion to ambiguity tended to respond in a way that signals the assignment of high risk, and low benefit, when presented with some unknown or uncertain risk."
• Biotechnology-driven consumer goods such as vaccines, fluoridated water, and foods produced with GMOs seem particularly susceptible to exaggerated views of health and safety risks. Does ambiguity aversion drive these risk misperceptions?
• A survey with 14 scenarios is administered to 318 American adults with at least a high school education. Four questions attempt to measure the respondent's underlying ambiguity aversion. These questions are followed up with a series of items concerning views on vaccines, organic foods, bottled water, and embryonic stem cells, where at least one response to each item is (treated as) inconsistent with the consensus scientific view.
• These preliminaries are succeeded by vignettes about fluoridated water, GMO foods, and so on, where the information presented is either conflicting or less-than-complete. The respondents rate the scenarios on the basis of risks and benefits, where the most positive response would view the scenario as one holding great benefit at low risk.
• The idea is that scientists often are willing to assign low risk/high benefit status to various innovations even in the absence of complete information, or in the presence of some conflicting information. Do the respondents behave similarly, and does being more ambiguity averse in general lead to more pessimistic assessments of such innovations?
• People view ambiguity concerning food to be particularly off-putting. Nonetheless, respondents who prefer bottled water to fluoridated tap water tend in other domains to go with the scientific consensus.
• The bottom line, from the Abstract (p. 47): "Participants who reported greater aversion to ambiguity tended to respond in a way that signals the assignment of high risk, and low benefit, when presented with some unknown or uncertain risk."
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