Research On The Influence Of Public Regulatory Trust On The Attitudes Of Chinese Consumers To GM Foods

The emergence of genetically modified foods drives many consumers' attention and causes fierce controversy.People always hear some news about genetically modified foods,but they do not really know the meaning of genetically modified foods and the kinds of benefits and risks would be brought by genetically modified foods.Consumers are always passive in accepting information and rarely actively searching for information.As a result of scientific and technological progress,whether genetically modified technology can continue to develop depends,to some extent,on the attitudes of consumers regarding genetically modified technologies and genetically modified foods.The attitude of consumers will be important in determining the future application of genetically modified technologies and the commercialization of genetically modified foods.Consumers' attitudes towards GM foods will be affected by consumer trust in stakeholders in the food supply chain(such as public regulatory authorities,manufacturers,retailers,etc.),especially be influenced by public regulatory authorities.Based on the above,this article studies consumer trust in public regulatory agencies,consumers' perceptions of the risks and benefits of genetically modified foods,and consumer attitudes toward genetically modified foods,and analyzes their causal relationships.The research of this paper firstly defines the concepts of attitude,consumers' attitude,perceived risk,and perceived benefits,and outlines the concepts,dimensions,and influencing factors of trust,food safety trust,and public regulatory trust.Based on the Mayer's trust model and the Bredahl's attitude model,this paper proposes research model and hypothesis.In addition,this article divides consumer trust in the public regulatory agency into three dimensions: consumers' trust in the abilities of public regulatory agencies,consumers' trust in the benevolence of public regulatory agencies,and consumers' trust in the integrity of public regulatory agencies.This article surveys the consumers in Changchun City of Jilin Province through questionnaires.Totally 561 valid questionnaires were collected.SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used to test the reliability and validity of the collected data.Structural equations and regression analysis verify the proposed hypothesis.The data collected by statistical software was used to calculate the reliability,validity,and correlation of the data.Through this calculation,we are able to draw some conclusion.First,the trust of consumers in public regulatory authorities positively affects consumers' attitude towards GM foods.Second,the trust of consumers in the public regulatory sector positively influences the perceived benefits of consumers regarding GM foods.Third,the trust of consumers in public regulatory authorities negatively influences the perceived risk of consumers towards GM foods.Fourth,the perceived benefits of consumer about GM foods positively affect the attitudes of consumers of GM foods.Fifth,Consumers' perceptions of GM foods negatively affect the attitudes of consumers of genetically modified foods.Sixth,the perceived risks and the perceived benefits of consumers' genetically modified foods have played a chain-mediated role in the trust of consumers in public regulatory agencies and the attitude of consumers in genetically modified foods.Through the analysis of collected data,we know currently consumers' trust in the public regulatory authorities,consumers' attitudes towards GM foods,and consumers' knowledge regarding GM technology and GM foods.Based on the information,we can propose some advices to further increase the trust of consumers' public regulatory agencies,convert consumers' attitude about genetically modified foods and genetically popularize GM foods' knowledge.