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+--- Thread: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" (/showthread.php?tid=140972)
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"Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - btfc - 09-02-2012
http://www.loyno.edu/news/story/2012/5/22/2862
'Eskine’s research is the first to demonstrate that exposure to organic foods can influence moral thinking and doing. “Food is a central component of daily life. Going beyond nutrition, food connects people to their heritage and environment; people celebrate with food, plan their days around it and even organize romantic encounters along various confectionery delights,” Eskine said.
After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed non-organic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which reduces their desire to be altruistic.
“One of my lines of research focuses on what I consider to be ‘everyday cognition,’ and food represents a perfect example of this,” Eskine said. “In particular, the organic food industry has significant implications for health, culture and psychology, and in many cases, foods can act as containers of meaning that transcend their physical properties.”
“The results could have turned out either way, but I was honestly hedging my bets on the moral licensing approach, according to which people feel licensed to act less ethically when their moral identities are made salient,” Eskine said. “Organic foods, like other green products, seem to help people affirm their moral identities, thus generating counterintuitive behaviors.”
Not necessarily political, but...
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - Lemon Drop - 09-02-2012
Well that explains why all the people who volunteer at our community garden are such a'holes.
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - davester - 09-02-2012
I was guessing that this might be published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, but the actual journal sounds just as flakey...
Social Psychological and Personality Science is a unique, short-reports journal that focuses on cutting-edge articles and is geared toward a speedy review and publication process that allows groundbreaking research to be quickly available to the field.
In other words, we welcome your bogus poorly vetted research.
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - $tevie - 09-02-2012
Lemon Drop wrote:
Well that explains why all the people who volunteer at our community garden are such a'holes.
:jest: :jest: :jest:
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - Pam - 09-02-2012
Let me guess, if you follow the money Monsanto is behind the study.
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - Gutenberg - 09-02-2012
DuPont? Dow? Archer Daniels Midland? Tyson? The list of suspects is long.
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - Uncle Wig - 09-02-2012
This makes sense to me. The " What's wrong with you?? How can you put that in your body??" attitude.
Reminds me of an interview by Diane Rehm with Jenny Brown of the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Brown came off as very sanctimonious and representative of why a lot of people dislike vegetarians and vegans. That's not how I feel in general, but I sure disliked Jenny Brown!
http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=16162
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - cbelt3 - 09-02-2012
It's the lack of chemicals in their systems . Causes grouchies!!
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - Ted King - 09-03-2012
After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed non-organic foods.
"viewing"?!! ... and then he thinks those results justify this conclusion:
I was honestly hedging my bets on the moral licensing approach, according to which people feel licensed to act less ethically when their moral identities are made salient," Erskin said.
No way, ray. There's other equally plausible explanations - like you had many people in the "view organic food" group who felt guilty because they don't eat organic food and that got them feeling defensive and led to them being less generous. I mean, though, really, what part of the design if this experiment yields outcomes that test the hypothesis that viewing organic food leads to people feeling licensed to act less ethically because their moral identities are made salient? Unless there is a whole lot more to this study than acknowledged on the web page cited in the OP, that conclusion seems to be projection on the part of the researcher of what he wanted to read into the results. Perhaps he hedged his bets more than he is aware.
And I have questions about the methodology of the research. I still wonder about the usefulness of data about random people (most of whom surely do not regularly eat organic food if they truly are chosen randomly) who are just viewing organic food. What question is this experiment designed to hopefully find an answer to? At most the results are suggestive of something, but what it is suggestive of is not at all evident to me (and certainly doesn't, as I said, justify the conclusion the researcher draws). I am also concerned with the use of "significantly less time" and "significantly harsher". If the researcher thinks that they have set up the experiment sufficiently well, they may claim that there was a statistically significant difference - which could mean that there is a possible 5% error rate in the data and they measured a 6% difference between the "view organic food group" and other groups. That may be a statistically significant difference assuming the researchers made all the right calls on experimental design and statistical analysis (which is probably two of the most common areas where errors are made even amongst experienced researchers), but in common parlance, that 1% beyond the 5% error rate isn't what most people would think of as much of a significant difference. Perhaps the difference was much more than that, but based on the cited web page, there isn't enough information to know.
It would be good to know where the funds came from to pay for the research.
Re: "Organic Foods Reduce Pro-social Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" - GGD - 09-04-2012
This study from Stanford just hit the news today.
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2012/september/organic.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/science/earth/study-questions-advantages-of-organic-meat-and-produce.html