Social Desirability Influences on Judgements of Biotechnology Across the Dimensions of Risk, Ethicality and Naturalness

Piers Fleming, Ellen Townsend, Kenneth C. Lowe and Eamonn Ferguson

Journal of Risk Research, 2007, vol. 10, issue 7, 989-1003

Abstract: This study examined the relationship between social desirability and dimensional judgments of risk, naturalness and ethicality for biotechnological and matched natural health technologies. We examine if those who are motivated to respond in a socially-desirable way will be more likely to rate genetically-modified (GM) technologies as more risky (less natural or ethical) than those who are not motivated to respond in a socially-desirable way. One-hundred and forty-eight participants rated eight technologies along three dimensions (risk, naturalness and ethicality) and completed a measure of social desirability. The results showed that ethicality was unrelated to social desirability. The dimension of naturalness was related to social desirability regardless of the type of technology. The results further showed that for GM technologies those motivated to respond in a socially desirable way rated these as more risky. Theoretical and methodological implications are drawn from the study.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669870701486913 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:10:y:2007:i:7:p:989-1003

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJRR20

DOI: 10.1080/13669870701486913

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Risk Research is currently edited by Bryan MacGregor

More articles in Journal of Risk Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().