Do Worldviews Matter? Post‐materialist, Environmental, and Scientific/Technological Worldviews and Support for Agricultural Biotechnology Applications

Abstract

This paper draws upon the social science literature to evaluate whether materialist/post‐materialist, environmental, and scientific/technological worldviews predict levels of support for biotechnology applications. The novelty of this research is two‐fold: 1) it incorporates the post‐materialist hypothesis in risk perception models, and 2) it evaluates the effects of the these three worldviews simultaneously. Data from a regional southwest telephone survey in the United States conducted in Spring 2004 were used to investigate whether these three worldviews were related to support of various animal and plant biotechnology applications. The results illustrated that post‐materialist values were not significantly related to support for animal or plant biotechnology applications. However, environmental and science and technology measures were related to support. One of the new ecological paradigm items, “humans have the right to modify nature,” was consistently related to support for animal and plant biotechnology applications, and anti‐anthropocentric values were related to support for two plant applications. General attitudes toward science and technology were related to support for both animal and plant biotechnology applications. The results provide evidence that perceptions of these applications are multi‐dimensional and that respondents conceptualize animal and plant biotechnology applications differently.

Keywords:

• Attitudes
• biotechnology
• genetic modification
• new ecological paradigm
• post‐materialist hypothesis
• risk perception
• worldviews

Acknowledgment

The author would like to acknowledge John Lang for his comments on a prior draft and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute for funding this research.