TABLE 1
FROM:
Genetically Modified Food in The Eyes of the Public and Experts
Lennart Sjöberg
BACK TO ARTICLETable 1. Ratings of the 19 psychometric factors, means and standard deviations, and t-tests of differences between experts and the public
| Public | Experts | Standardized difference a , and outcome of t-test | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | Std. deviation | Mean | Std. deviation | ||
| New and unknown | 5.15 | 1.51 | 4.05 | 1.79 | 0.70*** |
| Order of nature is disturbed | 5.35 | 1.50 | 2.49 | 1.24 | 1.69*** |
| Hard to understand | 5.23 | 1.37 | 4.58 | 1.65 | 0.45** |
| Little known even to scientists | 4.81 | 1.54 | 3.09 | 1.51 | 1.06*** |
| Involuntary exposure | 5.19 | 1.55 | 4.13 | 1.42 | 0.67*** |
| Hard to avoid | 5.18 | 1.46 | 3.64 | 1.53 | 1.01*** |
| Immediate negative consequences | 3.97 | 1.52 | 1.89 | 1.14 | 1.30*** |
| Negative effects hard to reverse | 4.62 | 1.54 | 2.47 | 1.17 | 1.32*** |
| Strongly feared, dreaded | 4.60 | 1.53 | 3.65 | 1.60 | 0.61*** |
| "Unnatural" activity | 5.22 | 1.62 | 2.60 | 1.57 | 1.47*** |
| Will hurt children and future generations | 4.61 | 1.68 | 2.02 | 1.08 | 1.44*** |
| Unfair and immoral | 4.77 | 1.75 | 2.31 | 1.30 | 1.33*** |
| Creates great worry | 5.18 | 1.25 | 4.33 | 1.17 | 0.67*** |
| Human arrogance and hubris | 4.90 | 1.67 | 2.07 | 1.19 | 1.56*** |
| Disaster due to interference with nature | 4.98 | 1.65 | 2.20 | 1.17 | 1.55*** |
| Increasing effects over time | 5.12 | 1.51 | 2.67 | 1.35 | 1.49*** |
| Will lead to cancer | 3.94 | 1.57 | 1.93 | 0.94 | 1.23*** |
| An activity counter to nature | 5.16 | 1.70 | 2.13 | 1.39 | 1.61*** |
| Can have negative effects unknown today | 5.71 | 1.37 | 3.29 | 1.42 | 1.57*** |
*** P<0.0005, ** P<0.01.
a Standardized to give all the variables a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. This is done in order to make it possible to easily get a measure of the size of the differences, which is comparable across scales and studies. A difference about 0.6 on a standardized scale is considered "very large" (Cohen, 1988). Note that the present differences between the public and experts in most cases are much larger than that.
