Effects of Confirmation Bias on Consumer Attitudes Toward GM

make of verification Bias on Consumer Attitudes Toward GMLiterature Review Evaluating the Effects of hinderance Bias on Consumers Attitudes Toward Genetically Modified FoodsGenetically special feeds (GMFs) take over been a part of American life for much(prenominal) than twenty eld, with the farming approving the first commercial crop in 1994 (Bruening Lyons, 2000). Since then, genetically modified (GM) crops have boomed, with an estimated 70% of processed feeds on grocery store shelves containing GM ingredients (Chrispeels, 2014). The united States Department of Agriculture has recognized many benefits of GM crops, including greater yields, incr eternal sleepd pabulumal value, and better seed whole tone (Fernandez-Cornejo et al, 2014). Given the accepted global food climate, with hunger and starvation still being predominate in many countries, this is an important benefit.Since the introduction of GM crops into the food chain, a lot of questions have been asked rega rding their securety and untold research has been done in this regard. A 2014 meta-analysis of the previous ten years of data indicates that GMOs do non pose any direct threat to human health (Nicolia et al, 2014). Indeed, near scientists (Funk et al., 2015) and the World Health Organization (2015) take that GM foods be safe to eat. Despite this data, only just over a third of Americans believe GMOs are safe for human consumption (Funk et al, 2015) and many testament dribble more for foods that they know are non-GMO (Fernandez-Cornejo et al., 2014). This indicates that GM foods continue to be a contentious issue, and it is one that is much played out on fond media (Stevens et al., 2016).Food safety is an inherently emotional issue (Anderson 2000), and contentious issues, curiously emotional ones, are a good deal hyped up in the media (Stieglitz Dang-Xuan, 2013). When consumers go to the media pursuance in instituteation on the emotionally charged issue of GM food, the y go away find that much of tuition that is easily gravelible to them is negative and pertain more on popular eyeshot that scientific facts (Mahgoub, 2016 McCluskey, Swinnen, Vandermoortele, 2015). The medias negative depiction of GM food has been linked to consumers negative perception of the products (Marques, Critchley, Walshe, 2014 Vilella-Villa Costa-Font, 2008).Both existence legal opinion and scientific data play a part in how governments and regulatory bodies develop their policies, highlighting the importance of understanding the evidence and what shapes consumer carriages toward GMOs (Druckman Bolsen, 2011 scalawag Shapiro, 1983). Public opinion is formed from the attitudes of individuals (Katz, 1960). Hostility to GMOs can lead to constraining development of research near them (e.g. Ceccoli Hixon, 2012) and restrict or ban the exercising of the technology (e.g. Siegrist, 2000). The success of GMO foods on the market depends on public opinion (Moschini et al, 2005).Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the United States. closely 80% of online Americans use Facebook, and of those, 76% use it every day, and 55% chitchat it several times a day (Funk Rainie, 2015). Many American adults (62%) deposit their news from Facebook and nearly a fifth (18%) do it often (Gottfried Shearer, 2016). Facebook offers near-instantaneous access to news and randomness in users newsfeeds, offering a greater ease of selectivity over more traditional media sources (Westerwick et al, 2013). However, the selectivity is persuadeed towards users pre-existing beliefs and attitudes, and serves to limit the heart of information available to them through the use of their algorithm that provides pass on ordered with previous likes of the user, as well as web searches, thus change magnitude the effect of selective exposure (Bakshy et al., 2015 Pariser, 2011), and an effect to which most people may be unaware of (Powers, 2017). This leads to tailoring a news feed that is more and more fragmented and polarized to the existing attitudes of the individual user (Westerwick et al, 2013).Facebook also elicits quick responses from users by way of how information is presented and does not require the user to put much cognitive effort into assessing its veracity. Users go out often accept the first heart they encounter without insideng any further investigation (Flanagin Metzger, 2007 Chen et al, 2015), engaging in what Petty and Cacioppo (1986) termed skirting(prenominal) processing. This is common in user assessment on online media (Fogg et al, 2003) and when making food-related decisions (Frewer et al., 1997). In this type of processing, people rely on honest cues (Andrews et al., 2011 Walters et al, 2012) and cognitive heuristics, such as confirmation deflect, to try information and form an attitude about it. This is particularly true when people want to define about an issue that they do not know much about and are uncertain about the risks, benefits, and consequences (Tversky and Kanehan, 1975). With peripheral processing, no higher-order thinking, or substitution processing, goes into their formation of opinion. While engaged in peripheral processing, people will discredit the attitude incongruent information off-hand or will alter their perception of it so that it fits into their pre-existing schemas (Petty Cacioppo, 1986 Festinger, 1957). People generally choose messages that fit with their pre-existing beliefs, and regardless of how much importance they attach to an issue, they are not likely to spend much time looking for plausible information (Westerwick et al, 2013).The problem with engaging in peripheral processing when encountering messages on a platform like Facebook is that the credibility of the information they are accessing is often not verified (e.g., Moody, 2011) and people rarely verify the credibility of this information (Metzger, 2007). The information may be based on inferior data, is often driven by personal opinion (Ennals et. al, 2010), has no real standards for quality control or regulatory controls, and can be easily alter (Metzger et al, 2013).As mentioned earlier, confirmation bias is a cognitive heuristic that may be utilized when people are engaged in peripheral processing. The confirmation bias is a tendency for people to pay more attention to and attribute greater importance to information that is congruent with what they believe while overlooking or discrediting information that does not fit their preexisting beliefs (Klayman and Ha, 1987). Confirmation bias with regards to media exposure is well documented, with the first instance state over seventy years ago (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944), however, the effect of confirmation bias on user attitudes is not consistent across different types of messaging. semipolitical messaging and confirmation bias are well documented, but this is not the case for health messaging. Westerwick et al. (2013) found that people are generally more likely to look for credible information sources when it comes to their health. Alternatively, confirmation bias may be more pronounced if media coverage about an issue is negative, as could also be the case with GM foods (Lusk et al, 2014 Slovic, 1987). Given the impact of food safety on ones health, the question arises as to the role that confirmation bias has in consumers attitude formation toward GMOs, and this has not yet been adequately communicate by existing research. Research in this area would contribute to the noesis of how to best design messaging to positively persuade public opinion regarding GMOs.Purpose and ObjectivesThe advise of this study is to examine the impact of attitudinally congruent and attitudinally non-congruent messaging concerning GMOs on how consumers self-evaluate GM foods under the nicety Likelihood framework. To accomplish this purpose the following objectives were constructedCollect data on the pre-ex isting knowledge and beliefs of the intelligence of hearing about GMOs.Compare the perceptions of attitudinally congruent and attitudinally non-congruent GMO messaging.Compare the beliefs and attitudes of consumers pre and post-message exposure.ReferencesAndrews, J. C., Burton, S., Kees, J. (2011). 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