Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IFAPA), Agricultural Economics and Rural Studies, P.O. Box 3092, 14080 Córdoba, Spain.
Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Applied Economics, 14004 Córdoba, Spain.
Appetite. 2013 Jan;60(1):193-202. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2012.09.028. Epub 2012 Oct 11.
The application of genetic engineering to agriculture has led to an important and controversial innovation in the food sector, so-called Genetically Modified (GM) food. A great deal of literature has studied cognitive and attitudinal factors conditioning consumers' acceptance of GM food, knowledge being one of the most inconsistent variables. Notwithstanding, some authors suggest closer attention should be paid to "science literacy", even more so than knowledge. This paper studies the potential role of consumer literacy fields - i.e. consumer scientific-technical or social-humanistic literacy - in determining consumer choice behaviour towards GM foods. We analyse the strength of the moderating effects produced by consumer university training in some of the most important factors which influence consumers' innovative product acceptance, such as perceived benefits and risks, attitudes to GM technology, trust in institutions or knowledge. The research is performed in southern Spain, using a variance-based technique called Structural Equation Modelling by Partial Least Squares (PLSs). The results show that perceived benefits and risks play a significant role in shaping behavioural intentions towards GM food, the attitude to GM technology being the main driver of consumers' beliefs about risks and benefits. Additionally, behavioural intentions display some differences between the scientific-technical and social-humanistic literacy fields, the variables of trust in institutions and knowledge registering the most striking differences.
基因工程在农业中的应用导致了食品领域的一项重要且颇具争议的创新，即所谓的转基因食品。大量文献研究了认知和态度因素对消费者接受转基因食品的影响，而知识是最不一致的变量之一。尽管如此，一些作者认为应该更加关注“科学素养”，甚至比知识更重要。本文研究了消费者素养领域（即消费者的科技或人文社科素养）在决定消费者对转基因食品选择行为方面的潜在作用。我们分析了消费者接受大学培训在影响消费者对创新产品接受程度的一些重要因素中产生的调节作用，例如感知到的益处和风险、对转基因技术的态度、对机构的信任或知识。研究在西班牙南部进行，采用基于方差的技术，称为偏最小二乘法（PLS）的结构方程建模。结果表明，感知到的益处和风险在塑造消费者对转基因食品的行为意向方面起着重要作用，对转基因技术的态度是消费者对风险和益处的看法的主要驱动因素。此外，行为意向在科技和人文社科素养领域之间存在一些差异，机构信任和知识等变量的差异最为显著。
