Decisions under risk and uncertainty: The case of agricultural biotechnology

As grocers' shelves are stocked with a growing array of genetically engineered products, consumers are presented with increasing product choices. However, the products of the new agricultural-environmental biotechnology are not limited to consumer products but also are seen in the agricultural production process over which the consumer has little control and which may radically alter the environment. In other words, the new agricultural-environmental biotechnology is not only a private decision but also a public and potentially political issue.;Not all issues affecting the public become politically contested and lead to regulatory action. Generally, concern is raised by an event that focuses attention, such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring highlighting the dangers of pesticides or the nuclear power crisis at Three Mile Island. No such orienting event has arisen with the new agricultural-environmental biotechnology, yet it is subject to numerous regulations. This leads to the question of why it has been regulated.;The dissertation proposes that objects, issues and/or events defined as manmade are associated with perceptions of control and expectations of political action, whereas objects, issues or events defined as natural are associated with accepting things the way they currently are, with no need or effective ability to regulate. The primary hypothesis is that defining an agricultural-environmental disaster as natural or manmade leads to regulatory preferences. Secondary hypotheses concern the process of decision making and suggest that emotion, cognitive interpretations and policy preferences are likewise affected by the degree to which an agricultural-environmental disaster is defined as natural or manmade.;The dissertation uses a multi-modal approach that combines a secondary literature review, analysis of federal regulations, official position papers, e-mail posting and text- and video-based experiments. At the regulatory level, defining products of the new agricultural-environmental biotechnology as natural or manmade establishes what may and may not be regulated. However, as tested by experiments at the individual level, women and men process information differently based on whether the catastrophe is defined as natural or manmade. This implies a pivotal role for definition in affecting whether a technology becomes a political issue.