Empirical Research Of The Public Cognition Of Genetically Modified Foods

Genetically modified technology and industry are developing rapidly, but the development process has been accompanied by huge controversy. The public’s view of GM technology and its products has become the decisive factor for its healthy development. Therefore, we have conduct an in-depth investigation and research of1200people in six major cities of eastern, western and central China. This paper aims to know the public cognition of genetically modified food (GMF), to analyze the factors that affect the public’s view, and try to find ways and countermeasures of improving the public awareness of GMF. Through empirical investigation and research, it is hoped to provide some scientific countermeasures and suggestions for relevant national decision-making, so that mankind can get more benefit from the genetically modified foods.The content of this paper are mainly the following two aspects:One is the descriptive statistics analysis of public cognition on the basis of literature and empirical investigation. Firstly, it investigates the overview public cognition, including the frequency of hearing genetically modified foods, the understanding level of biological knowledge, the risk awareness and evaluation of GMF. Secondly, it learns about the public attitudes to genetically modified food. Thirdly, it studies the public’s trust and satisfaction of information and science popularization. Fourthly, it is an in-depth analysis of the public understanding and attitudes of the debate and its root. The other one is quantitative analysis of the influencing factors of the public perception. Cognitive theoretical framework and six related model has been set up based on existing research, and multiple linear regression and ordinal logit regression are used to study influencing factors. This paper focuses on personal characteristics, socio-economic relevant factors, family characteristics, risk awareness, information dissemination and other factors, particularly the science popularization factor which was neglected in previous studies, to explore the communication problem between the public and scientists. With the combination of the results of the descriptive statistics analysis and quantitative analysis, the cognitive relation model has been established.The result shows that genetically modified foods are well-known as a new food in China, but public cognitive level is limited; the public have concerned about health risks and environmental risks of GMF; the foods purchasing behavior of the public tends to be cautious, although the acceptance degree is high; the public hold a positive attitude to research of genetically modified technology and scientists’work. The study also shows that public cognition of genetically modified foods is affected by personal characteristics, socio-economic characteristics, information, popularization of science, risk awareness, environmental awareness, trust in government, subjective evaluation and many other factors. Finally, this paper proposes to establish a sound communication mechanism between the public and scientists to effectively increase science popularization, to regulate information dissemination of GMF, to strengthen the risk management and improve government decision-making transparency and credibility so as to advance the public’s scientific cognition of genetically modified foods eventually.