Analyses of People’s Perceptions Toward Risks in Genetically Modified Organisms

Abstract

This research aims to analyze people’s perceptions about the potential risks associated with the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food products. We formulated research questions and hypotheses based on parameters, including age, gender, state of residence, and more to analyze these perceptions. We conducted an online nationwide survey across the United States and recruited participants from the general population to understand their perceptions about risks for GMOs and GM foods. We formulated a set of questions regarding the effects of GMOs on food products (including both the pre- and post-study questions) and investigated the changes in people’s perceptions after reading selected news releases about GMOs. The survey responses were collected and categorized according to the research parameters and statistical assessments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Additionally, we introduced a novel approach to analyze the responses by creating a mind-map framework for both the pre- and post-study responses. We found that people residing in the southern region of the United States responded more positively toward GMOs when compared to individuals residing in the northeast, west and mid-west regions. We also deduced that people’s perceptions about GMOs were not significantly different from each other whether they resided in states with Republican or Democrat/non-partisan party affiliations. Further, we observed that the male participants responded more negatively compared to the female participants across the nation. We compared the results obtained from respondents in the general population to those from a group of Computer Science students at North Dakota State University who completed the same survey. We found that students considered GMOs less risky when compared to the general population. A third research study compared participants from the general population to a group of participants who were recruited from the general population. The second group didn’t read the news releases that separated the survey’s pre- and post-study questions. We observed that the news releases impacted the participants from the first group and, eventually, changed the individuals’ perceptions about GMOs when compared to the participants from the second group who possessed no or fewer perception changes.