by Fran Smith
July 3, 2006

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Good morning. I’m pleased to be with you today to discuss the topic, “Consumer Interest and Concern about Genetically Modified Foods: Global Perspective.”

I will first provide a context for the discussion that focuses on the broader question—where do people’s views, attitudes, perceptions, and concerns come from?

People’s attitudes toward items and issues derive from a mix of knowledge and quick appraisals based on their values.  That is, people’s attitudes equal knowledge plus values.

Companies tend to focus on the knowledge or information component—"educating consumers"—and this is often a very useful approach.  When the choice is critical, when the costs of informing oneself are low, then there is some prospect that an "information-based" communication strategy can be useful.

However, when the choice is less significant—for example, in a wealthy world of plentiful food with many alternatives—then consumers will spend less time "informing themselves."  In economic parlance, they will be "rationally ignorant." In that case, they are much more likely to be swayed by "emotive/value" concerns. 

“Rationally ignorant” is not a pejorative term. For most people, there are few reasons to spend their time learning the nuances of complex policy or scientific issues because they believe they can do very little about them. On the other hand, they do spend time familiarizing themselves with things about which they can do something. People are rational.

Poll after poll suggests that people don't know much about a large number of things outside of their daily lives and interests.  Many people don’t know who their congressman is, which countries were on which side in WW II, how electricity is generated, and on and on. 

There is nothing surprising here—we all already suffer from information overload about things that are directly relevant to our welfare—our investment or retirement plans, where our kids should go to college, should we re-finance our mortgage? And many of us—I suspect—are not as diligent as we might be about these educational tasks.  Thus, for most other issues, we spend a few moments and then quickly classify that product or candidate or technology as advancing our values (and thus "good") or threatening our values (and thus "bad"). 

And, in our modern, wealthy age, many increasingly regard all change as risky.  Moreover, a simple "educational" program or fact-based communication strategies are likely—not only to fail—but perhaps to make the situation worse!

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