While perusing twitter this morning, I found a link to this article by Maria Konnikova, recently published in the New Yorker: The Psychology of Distrusting GMOs
As many of my readers know, I am someone who did totally change my views about GMOs. I started out very afraid of and against transgenics and biotechnology in general but as I researched, read, talked with experts, and kept an open mind, I did a complete one-eighty [1]. I have not regretted that shift for even a moment. I am comfortable with GMOs, transgenics, biotechnology, GM crops, GM food.
As I read this article, I am reminded yet again that my experience is the exception, not the rule. Once perceptions are formed by an individual about a topic, it’s a hard sell to change them. Hard, yes. Impossible, no.
Here are a few excerpts, quotes and my own descriptions of what I got out of this very interesting article.
The following quote was made in reference to the rightness of calling a food ‘natural’ if it has been genetically modified.
The natural is what we find more familiar, while what we consider unnatural tends to be more novel—perceptually and experientially unfamiliar—and complex, meaning that more cognitive effort is required to understand it. -Robert Sternberg, pyschologist, 1982
The history of agriculture is the history of humans breeding seeds and animals to produce traits we want in our crops and livestock. -Michael Specter
The article’s author, Konnikova, describes a taste experiment that was conducted in which the same organic food was presented twice, once labeled as organic and the second time labeled as regular. Test subjects routinely rated the taste, low-calorie status and nutritional quality of the organic labeled food higher than the non-organic, when in fact, they were one in the same! This phenomenon is called the “halo effect” according to Konnikova. She defines it this way: a phenomenon whereby one positive attribute of a person or thing colors other, unrelated characteristics in a positive light.
GMOs suffer from a reverse halo effect, Konnikova writes. One attribute perceived as negative, like, say, the perceived unnaturalness of GMOs, affects the whole perception negatively. One could extrapolate and come to the conclusion, for example, that if it is not natural, it must not be safe, must be bad for the environment and so on.
Konnikova writes:
The negative halo of GMOs doesn’t just affect how we feel toward them; it also impacts how we evaluate their attending risks and benefits. As early as 1979, the psychologist Paul Slovic, who has been studying our perceptions of risk since the nineteen-fifties, pointed out that, when it comes to new, unknown technologies, data always loses out to emotion […] Once an initial opinion is formed, Slovic continues, it is very difficult to shift it with new evidence: the exact same piece of information—say, additional data on the effects of GMOs on a natural ecosystem—can be interpreted in opposing ways, depending on your starting point.
Later in the article, Konnikova cites some hope. She writes:
Does that mean that GMOs will always be subject to emotionally driven instead of data-driven assessments? Not necessarily. Time is on the side of increased rationality: the longer that genetic-modification technologies are in use, the more likely we are to begin to incorporate them into our sense of the familiar. As children are born into a world where genetic modification is more widespread, they may even begin to see it as more natural—and hence, be able to judge its impact with greater objectivity.
The youngsters are the best hope. That is the opinion of S4H. They don’t take issue with GMOs the way the 35 and above do. I see this first hand with my own kids and would like to add that, at least in their case, the public education they received, science included, was more than adequate and I would classify both of them as critical thinkers. There have been countless times I have stated a belief, not just about a science topic, but any random belief, and they have challenged me about it. Could it be our education in the US is improving, at least in some places? If so, this is good news for biotechnology.
I recommend reading the full article. The author is highly credentialed and writes well (see below). It raises many more points than what I have covered here and cites specific experiments that were done with individual perceptions about GMOs,
Maria Konnikova is the author of the New York Times best-seller “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.” She has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University.
Julee K/Sleuth4Health
email: sleuth4health@gmail.com
SLEUTH 4 HEALTH 
11 responses to “Scared of GMOs? It’s All In Your Head!”
Cool, didn’t see that. I actually read something on the Halo Effect recently and incorporated it into a talk I’m doing next month on this same subject. Yay! I need to read the whole thing. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Kevin: I think there are excellent insights here into the mechanism of the anti-GMO brain.
I do hope that, someday, this will lead to a cure for SAS !
Perhaps we can start a charity to fund research. We can call it the March of Shill(ings) ! 🙂
FO: have you been following this 14-year old Canadian girl activist extraordinaire? She recites the anti-GMO script to perfection.
I’ve seen links to the story but i haven’t watched the actual video yet. All the anti-gmo sites seem to crow about how she somehow put her host in his place and nothing about what she might have actually added to the debate, what new insight, etc. Unless she’s some super genius biology prodigy, i don’t know how a 14 year old could add anything meaningful given that her age precludes any real scientific training or coursework. But, i’m pre-judging so i should force myself to watch it nonetheless.
By the way, I’m actually in France this week! I think, though, I’m starting to suffer from GMO withdrawal. I hope it’s only psychological ! Bon soir !
Well, i finally watched it! It wasn’t so bad after all. He was, in no way, that i can tell, really all that patronizing at all. Nor was she ever accused of being a shill. All he said was that he was worried that she may be turned into a shill by the anti-gmo movement.
Of course she was dead wrong about Golden Rice and she said she was against GMO food on principle, though she wavered and said she was fine with sufficient testing. She was also wrong about government testing, though right about the FDA in not doing there own tests, but the FDA is not the whole government and the US government is not the only government around. The EU also conducts GMO testing, as well as independent universities.
Of course, Julee, you already know all this. 🙂
Supplement:
I leave France in two days. I feel fine now so it muest have been psychological after all !
Bonjour, bon soir et bon glace de chocolate !
Love the blind taste test info. Wow, we humans and our brains can do some crazy things. I also love the aspect about our children, and in my case, grandchildren growing up with this wonderful technology, learning about it and learning how to use it for awesome things in the future.
Exactly. My kids are college age and challenge me constantly. They are too smart for me to force any prejudices onto them. Thank goodness!
FO: I am being facetious when I call her “activist extraordinaire”. She is a kid so people listen to her and to those who haven’t done their homework, it seems like she is well read and knows what she is talking about, but really she just parrots, to perfection, and with much passion and verve, the anti-GMO rhetoric. There must be some psychological explanation for why people believe a 14-year-old over an expert. Vive la France!
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