Risk Perceptions, Risk Preference, and Acceptance of Risky Food

Consumers' risk preferences are often overlooked in studies of consumer demand for risky food. We find that risk preferences elicited through context-less lottery choices are significantly related to consumers' stated preferences for genetically modified (GM) food. These results suggest risk preferences elicited in the laboratory are not artificial in the sense that they appear to be related to the same risk preferences that govern other individual decisions such as food choice. Consistent with theoretical expectations, risk perceptions and risk preferences were found to be significant determinants of acceptance of GM food, which has important implications for explaining consumer behavior. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.