Abstract:
Most studies exploring the public acceptance of genetically modified food (GMF) are based on social trust and the establishment of a causal model. The underlying premise is that social trust indirectly affects public acceptance of GMF through perceived risks and perceived benefits. The object of social trust is trust in people, organizations, and institutions. Different from the social trust, epistemic trust refers to people\'s trust in scientific knowledge behind the technology of concern. It has been shown that epistemic trust, like social trust, is also an important factor that affects the public perception of applicable risks and benefits. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate epistemic trust into the causal model to derive a more complete explanation of public acceptance. However, such work has not been conducted to date. The causal model proposed in this paper integrated epistemic trust and social trust and divided social trust into trust in public organizations and trust in industrial organizations. A representative questionnaire survey (N = 1091) was conducted with Chinese adults. The model was analyzed by the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method. Three major findings were obtained: First, epistemic trust is an important antecedent of perceived risks and perceived benefits and exerts a significant indirect effect on the acceptance of GMF. Secondly, trust in industrial organizations negatively impacts perceived risks, while trust in public organizations positively impacts perceived benefits. Thirdly, contrary to the common opinion, trust in industrial organizations did not exert a significant direct effect on perceived benefits, and trust in public organizations did not demonstrate a significant direct effect on perceived risks. Therefore, trust in industrial organizations and trust in public organizations utilize different influence paths on GMF acceptance. This study enriches the understanding of the influence path of trust with regard to the acceptance of emerging technologies and is of great significance to relevant risk-management practices.
摘要:
大多数探索转基因食品(GMF)公众接受度的研究都是基于社会信任和因果模型的建立。基本前提是社会信任通过感知风险和感知收益间接影响公众对GMF的接受度。社会信任的对象是对人的信任,组织,和机构。不同于社会信任,认知信任是指人们对关注技术背后的科学知识的信任。已经证明,认识论信任,比如社会信任,也是影响公众对适用风险和收益认知的重要因素。因此,有必要将认知信任纳入因果模型,以得出更完整的公众接受度解释。然而,迄今为止,尚未进行此类工作。本文提出的因果模型融合了认知信任和社会信任,将社会信任分为对公共组织的信任和对产业组织的信任。对中国成年人进行了代表性问卷调查(N=1091)。采用偏最小二乘结构方程建模(PLS-SEM)方法对模型进行了分析。获得了三个主要发现:第一,认知信任是感知风险和感知收益的重要前提,对GMF的接受具有重要的间接影响。其次,对工业组织的信任会对感知到的风险产生负面影响,而对公共组织的信任会对感知到的利益产生积极影响。第三,与普遍观点相反,对工业组织的信任没有对感知到的利益产生显著的直接影响,对公共组织的信任对感知风险没有显著的直接影响。因此,对工业组织的信任和对公共组织的信任对GMF接受的影响路径不同。这项研究丰富了对新兴技术接受信任影响路径的理解,对相关风险管理实践具有重要意义。