A Study On The Effects Of Trust And Perceived Risk And Benefit On Public Acceptance Of Genetically Modified Food

Genetically modified food is an emerging agricultural technology that has greater social,economic and environmental benefits,and is of great significance for solving the world food crisis.From the strategic height of food security for the 9th consecutive year,China's Central Document No.1 clearly stated that it is necessary to vigorously develop genetically modified biotechnology,including genetically modified foods,to seize the technical commanding heights.But the development of technology is inseparable from public acceptance.Although research by authoritative scientific institutions such as the World Health Organization(WHO)has shown that the genetically modified foods available on the market are highly safe,have no impact on human health,and have a low risk.However,in many countries and regions,the general public has a negative and opposing attitude towards GM food,or a low willingness to accept,which directly hinders the realization and development of the benefits of GM food.Therefore,which factors influence the public's willingness to accept genetically modified foods and how they are influenced have become hot topics in the field of environmental resources and food public policy.Most of the current research on willingness to accept genetically modified foods is based on the Siegrist causal model.The basic assumption of these studies is that perceived risk and perceived benefit are the direct factors that determine the public's willingness to accept,and trust is an important factor that affects perceived risk and perceived benefit.Research results in the field of risk perception research show that trust is a multi-class concept.In addition to social trust,epistemic trust is also an important factor affecting public risk perception.In addition,new research on social trust shows that social trust is a multi-dimensional concept.It can be divided into trust in public institutions and trust in business organizations.The support foundations of these two types of social trust are not the same.The causal model proposed in this paper fully considers the above factors.The questionnaire data(N=1091),and the analysis method of partial least squares structural equation model(PLS-SEM)are used to make an empirical test of the proposed model.These research results are also of reference significance in formulating public policies for genetically modified food.First of all,raising the public's epistemic trust can increase the public's willingness to accept,so the society should pay attention to the popular science activities related to genetically modified foods,since this can increase the public's epistemic trust and improve the public's willingness to accept.Second,Different types of social trust have different effects on income perception and risk perception.Last,since public's social trust to the business organizations influences the willingness to accept through perceived risk,business organizations need to increase the transparency of risk information and disclose the measures and actual effects of business organizations on risk control of genetically modified foods when communicating with the public.These research results have reference significance for formulating public policies for genetically modified foods.One is to strengthen the science popularization and publicity related to genetically modified foods,and enhance the public's epistemological trust;the second is to strengthen the information disclosure and public participation to increase the public's social trust in public institutions;the third is to strengthen the transparency of corporate risk prevention and control information and improve Social trust.