Temporal stability of the psychological determinants of trust: Implications for communication about food risks

Abstract

There has been much debate about the role of trust in information sources in risk communication. Recent food scares have highlighted the need for both the development of effective risk communication strategies and investigation into whether trust differs between different information sources. In the reported study, 220 participants rated their trust in information about food risks associated with five different food hazards provided by 10 information sources that may provide food risk information to the public. Trust associated with the different information sources was similar, independent of the type of hazard about which the sources were providing information. Building on previous research it was found that the psychological components of trust and distrust were robust over time. The results confirmed the results of previous research, in that medical sources were more trusted than government sources. However, industry sources were least trusted to convey information about food risk to the public, probably as a result of the food scares of the mid to late 1990s.

Keywords:

• risk
• trust
• food hazards
• risk communication

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the UK Food Standards Agency for funding the research reported in this paper.

Notes

Although the study aimed to use concrete, named sources it was decided that due to the large number of different supermarkets and food manufacturers, for practical reasons individual supermarkets and manufacturers would not be named.