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AsPac J. Mol. Biol. Biotechnol., Vol. 15 (2), 2007 39Public Acceptance of Modern Biotechnology Asia Pacific Journal of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, 2007Vol. 15 (2) : 39-51

*Author for Correspondence.Mailing address: Latifah Amin, Centre for General Studies, Univer-siti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan. Email: [email protected]

MINIREVIEW

Public Acceptance of Modern Biotechnology

Latifah Amin1, Jamaluddin Md. Jahi2, Abd Rahim Md. Nor3, Mohamad Osman4 and Nor Muhammad Mahadi4

1Centre for General Studies, 2Centre for Graduate Studies, 3Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, 4Faculty of Science and Technology,

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Received 8 October 2006 / Accepted 12 December 2006

Abstract. Modern biotechnology has been viewed by many as the frontier of the next revolution. It is a powerful tool that presents a range of potential environmental, social and economic benefits that demands rigorous oversight. However, because the advancement in biotechnology have been so rapid in the past ten years, it has been the object of an intense and divisive debate in advanced countries. It has been suggested that a major factor in the emergence of controversies surrounding biotech-nology has been the neglect of the needs, interests and concerns of the primary stakeholders the commoners. Public percep-tions, understanding and acceptance of modern biotechnology can both promote and hamper its commercial introduction and adoption. Modern biotechnology has been classified as a complex emerging issue that exhibits high salience combined with limited knowledge on part of the public. Various studies have shown that consumer acceptance of modern biotechnology tend to be conditional and dependent on many factors. This paper will review the acceptance of various applications of modern biotechnology worldwide, cross-cultural differences, factors affecting public acceptance and models for public acceptance of modern biotechnology.

Keywords. Public perception, attitude, acceptance, biotechnology, perceived risk, benefit

INTRODUCTION

Modern biotechnology has been viewed by many as the frontier of the next revolution. It is a powerful tool that presents a range of potential environmental, social and economic benefits that demands rigorous oversight (Kamaldeen and Powell, 2000). However, because the advancement in biotechnology have been so rapid in the past ten years, it has been the object of an intense and divisive debate in advanced countries. Sagar et al. (2000) suggest that a major factor in the emergence of controversies surrounding biotechnology has been the neglect of the needs, interests and concerns of the primary stakeholders the commoners. Public perceptions, understanding and acceptance of GMOs can both promote and hamper commercial introduction and adoption of new technologies (Kamaldeen and Powell, 2000). The studies of public attitude towards biotechnology have many similarities with risk perception studies. Earlier research in risk perception has indicated that there were significant differences between expert and public perception of risks from a variety of hazards (Sjoberg and Drottz-Sjoberg ,1994).

There is a wide gap between how scientists and risk experts think about, define and evaluate risks compared to the lay public. The experts have lamented that the public reactions to scientific risk assessments as ignorance and irrational but researchers have shown that the public understanding of risk is driven by factors not taken into account by the experts (Slovic, 1993). According to Sandman (1987), the public generally pays too little attention to the hazardous nature of risks while experts usually completely ignore those factors which fuel consumer unrest or outrage. These are two very different starting points and not surprisingly, experts and consumers often rank the relative importance of various risks very differently (Sandman, 1987; Slovic, 1987). Scientists, in general, define risks in the language and procedures of science itself. They consider the nature of the harm that may occur, the probability that it will occur, and the number of people who may be affected. Most citizens, in contrast, seem less aware of the quantitative or probabilistic nature of a risk, and much more concerned with broader, qualitative

40 AsPac J. Mol. Biol. Biotechnol., Vol. 15 (2), 2007 Public Acceptance of Modern Biotechnology

attributes, such as whether the risk is voluntarily assumed, whether the risks and benefits are fairly distributed, whether the risk can be controlled by the individual, whether a risk is necessary and unavoidable or whether there are safer alternatives, whether the risk is familiar or exotic, whether the risk is natural or technological in origin, and so forth (Sandman, 1987). People also judge risk according to their perception of its controlling agents: if these controlling agents have a track record of secrecy, or they dominate supposedly independent regulatory bodies and the public policy process, then people magnify the perceived risks (Hamstra, 1992; Covello, 1992). Modern biotechnology has been classified as a complex emerging issue that exhibits high salience combined with limited knowledge on part of the public. Various studies have shown that consumer acceptance of modern biotechnology tend to be conditional and dependent on many factors. It has also been suggested by social scientists that any complex object may be located in a variety of general classes where its evaluation may also be strongly affected by extraneous concerns (Pardo et al., 2002).

PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF VARIOUS APPLI-CATIONS OF MODERN BIOTECHNOLOGY

Whilst there have been much debate on the acceptance of genetic engineering, there is many evidences that objections to the technology focus on specific applications of the technology than genetic engineering per se (Frewer et al., 1997). Several studies have shown that consumer attitudes towards gene transfers are moderated by the type of transfers (Decima, 1993; Hoban and Kendall, 1992; Macer et al., 2000). Plant to plant gene transfers were generally more acceptable with animal-animal next, and animal-plant or human-animal gene transfers the least acceptable. Gaskell and colleagues (Gaskell et al., 2000; 2003) who surveyed the Europeans, Einseidel (1997) who studied the Canadians and Priest (2000) whose subjects were the Americans found out that medical applications (leading to the development of medicines and vaccines and genetic testing) were more acceptable compared to food or crop biotechnology applications. However, medical applications related to xenotransplantation or animal cloning to produce milk to make medicines were considered problematic. The Asians were also less concerned about medical products of genetic engineering compared to genetically modified food (Macer et al., 2000) The cloning of human cells and bioremediation were placed by the Europeans at the intermediate level, less acceptable than genetic testing but more acceptable than genetically modified crop and food (Gaskell et al., 2000; 2003). In 2000, Gaskell et al. reported the highest degree of

support amongst the Europeans was for genetic testing followed by the introduction of human genes into bacteria to produce medicines or vaccines, next bioremediation followed by the cloning of human cells to replace patient’s diseased cells, then the transfer of incompatible plant species into crop plant to increase resistance to insect pests, the cloning of animals to produce milk that can be used to make medicines or vaccines and lastly the use of modern biotechnology in the production of food. Gaskell et al. (2003) carried out another survey with slightly different biotechnology applications in 2002. He found out that genetic testing still scored the highest support amongst the Europeans followed by human cells cloning, the production of GM enzymes for environmentally friendly soaps, xenotransplantation and at the bottom of the lists were GM crops and food. Macer et al. (2000) also noticed that the highest level of support was for bacteria to clean oil spills followed by disease resistant crops next, and less fat meat and better taste tomatoes while there was less support for enhancing milk production in cows. The Malaysian consumers were found to be more encouraging of modern biotechnology applications that do not involve inter-species gene transfers such as the use of modern biotechnology in food production and GM crop that only involved the transfer of plant gene (ISAAA-UIUC 2003). When the application involved inter species gene transfer or tampering with animals’ genome such as introducing human gene into bacteria to produce medicines or modifying genes of laboratory animals, the application were less supported. This pattern is again supported by the findings of Latifah et al. (2006a) in their 2004 survey of the Malaysian public. Modifying oil palm genes to reduce its fat (saturated) content was the most encouraged by the Malaysian public followed by transferring human genes into bacteria to produce insulin and the least supported was transferring bacterial genes into soybean to make it resistant to herbicide.

CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

According to the cultural approach of risk research, the evaluative process of risk perception is determined by the norms, value systems and cultural idiosyncrasies of societies or societal groups (Rohrmann 1994). Macer et al. (2000) also noticed that there was diversity of opinion and reasoning across different culture. The Japanese were found to be the most favorably inclined towards biotechnology as a means of improving the quality of life in 2000 (59%, Macer and Chen Ng, 2000) followed closely by the Americans (52.8%, Priest 2000) compared to the Europeans surveyed in 1999 (46%, Gaskell et al., 2003). Gaskell et al. (2001) also highlighted the differences between North American and European reaction towards agricultural biotechnology. The North American had greater confidence in the benefits of agricultural biotechnology compared to stronger concerns about the risks

AsPac J. Mol. Biol. Biotechnol., Vol. 15 (2), 2007 41Public Acceptance of Modern Biotechnology

and uncertainties of the technology in Europe. In the 1993 International Bioethics Survey (Macer et al. 2000), the public samples in Thailand were found to be the most enthusiastic towards genetic engineering with the highest support towards plant-plant gene transfer (82%) followed by USA (66%), India and New Zealand (56%) and lowest in Japan (39%). Animal-animal gene transfer was also the most acceptable in Thailand (68%) followed by India (40%), New Zealand (29%), USA (25%), and Japan (20%). The cross kingdom gene transfers (animal-plant and human-animal) garnered much lower support from all countries but the highest support still went to Thailand. Macer et al. (2000) suggested that there may be significant differences in public opinion concerning biotechnology in India, Thailand and China. The support for therapeutic gene therapy was significantly greater compared to human genetic manipulation for cosmetic purposes such as improving physical characters, improving intelligence or making people more ethical. However, in India and Thailand more than 50% of the respondents supported enhancement of physical characters, intelligence and making people more ethical. The largely Chinese populations of Singapore and Hong Kong biology students were intermediate between the industrialized countries and Thailand and India in their acceptance of enhancement. Genetic engineering for fun such as larger sports fish was also highly supported by the people in Thailand, India, Singapore Hong Kong and students in China. According to Macer et al. (2000), this could be due to poor living standards and infectious diseases which made them more pragmatic about improvement or that the people in those countries have different level of bioethical maturity (even though they were relatively highly educated samples). They also suggested that factors behind people’s acceptance or rejection of enhancement such as culture, education, religion, familiarity with medicine or living standards should be closely examined. Another Asean survey carried out by ISAAA-UIUC in 2002 showed lower support from the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippines consumers towards five modern biotechnology applications. The levels of encouragement towards various modern biotechnology applications were also different between the three countries. The Malaysian (18.9%) and Indonesian (20%) consumers were the least supportive of modifying genes of laboratory animals to study human diseases compared to the other four applications. On the other hand, the Philippine consumers (39%) were noticeably the most supportive of the same application compared to the others which only secured less than 27% consumers support. The Malaysian consumers were found to be more encouraging of modern biotechnology applications that does not involve inter species gene transfers or tampering with animals’ genome such as the use of modern biotechnology in food production (33.3%) and GM crop (32.4%) that only involved the transfer of plant gene compared to by transferring human genes into bacteria to produce medicines

(29.7%) and modifying genes of laboratory animals to study human diseases. The Indonesian consumers were more critical as they seemed to be more encouraging of modern biotechnology applications that does not involved any tampering such as genetic testing (36%) or when there was no mention of gene transfer such as the use of modern biotechnology in food production (28%) compared to the other applications that only managed to gather 25% or less consumer support.

FACTORS AFFECTING PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARDS MODERN BIOTECHNOLOGY

Public acceptance can be understood as the combined attitude of individuals on certain political issues, such as those arising from technological innovations (Aerni 1999). An individual’s attitude towards a new technology depends on a number of related factors such as his (or her) perception of its risks and benefits, his socially communicated values and trusts in institutions representing these technologies. With respect to public perception of biotechnology, Kelley (1995) propose that attitude to genetic engineering is determine by the worth of potential benefits offered, knowledge on genetic engineering and having a scientific world-view, minus the perceived risk (rational worries) and anxieties or fears (irrational worries) and plus/minus various minor factors such as background factors. Other studies also concluded that the public’s main concerns about biotechnology are primarily driven by ethical, value and safety concerns (Einsiedel 1997). While according to Hoban (1997), the major influences on acceptance seem to be knowledge level, awareness of benefits, confidence and trust. Gaskell et al. (2000; 2003) used four dimensions of attitude: perceived use, risks, moral acceptability and encouragement to model patterns of European public response to biotechnology. The studies of public attitude towards biotechnology have many similarities with risk perception studies. Many previous researches on public risk perception towards various technologies and food related hazards (Slovic, 1992; Sparks and Shepherd, 1994; Kirk et al., 2002; Slovic, 2004) have adopted the psychometric approach developed by Paul Slovic and colleagues (Fischhoff et al., 1978; Slovic, 1987). This approach originated from cognitive psychology was described by Hansen et al., (2003) as the most mature and dominant paradigm in risk perception studies. According to Rohrmann (1999), the psychometric methods were established based on four intentions:

to establish “risk” as a subjective concept, and not an objective entity.to include technical/physical and social/psychological aspects in risk criteriato accept opinions of the “public” (i.e. lay people, not experts) as the matter of interest.

1.

2.

3.


to analyze the cognitive structure of risk judgments, usually employing multivariate statistical procedures such as factor analysis, multi-dimensional scaling and multiple regression.

The psychometric approach suggests that the public did not perceive technological risk according to a single dimension related to predicted injuries or fatalities akin to a risk assessor’s viewpoint but interpret risk as a multidimensional concept, concerned with broader qualitative attributes (Rowe, 2004). Within this approach, multi-dimensional risk perception is invoked to explain the expert-lay disagreement that is ascribed to lay ignorance in the knowledge deficit model (Hansen et al., 2003). The key variables of risk perception research are the perceived magnitude of risk or dread, risk acceptance, familiarity with the hazard and lately the factor benefit has gained much interest (Rohrmann, 1999). Sjoberg (2004) has highlighted the importance of another dimension; ‘interference with nature’ in risk perception studies on genetic engineering.

Perceived Benefit

Several researchers have acknowledged the importance of perceived benefits in determining acceptability of biotechnology applications (Kamaldeen and Powell, 2000; Rowe, 2004; Gaskell et al., 2000; 2004). The relatively low levels of public support for a variety of gene transfers change dramatically when a gene transfer is tied to achieving a specific goal that is deemed worthy. Kelley (1995) argued that most Australians approve of genetic engineering because they see it as serving goals that they value, not because they understand much about it. In their analysis of the fourth Eurobarometer survey, Gaskell et al., (2000) noticed a consistent pattern in the structure of European public perceptions across the seven application of biotechnology. They concluded that as the perceived usefulness of applications declines, perceived risk increases and moral acceptability and support decline. Usefulness or benefit was found to be a precondition for support. If the applications were perceived to have substantial benefits such as in health care (GM medicines and human cells cloning), the applications were supported despite having some risks. On the other hand if the application was perceived to have only modest benefits such as GM crop, it was not supported even though the risks were perceived to be modest. Current analysis of the European public opinion showed that the rejection of GM foods was not so much the perception of risks but rather the perceived absence of benefit for consumers (Gaskell et al., 2004). This was particularly true in the “skeptical” group (perceive GM foods as not useful and risky) who made up the majority of the Europeans sample (60%). As for the “trade-off ” group (perceive GM foods as both useful and risky), the respondent

4. looked at the perceived benefit first before considering risks. A higher number of Americans (69%) perceived GM foods as useful compared to 46% in Europe which again relate to higher acceptance of GM foods in the United States. Rohrmann (1999) cited the beneficial aspects of a technology include benefits provided by the risk source for an individual, societal benefits, contribution to human needs, relevance to human needs, risk and benefit equitable and attractiveness of risky activity. In Angus Reid World Poll (Kamaldeen and Powell, 2000) consumers associated benefits of GM foods with higher yields and better food quality.

Perceived Risk

Although perceived benefits of GM foods and crops are important in determining their public acceptability but knowledge of the amount of benefits or extent of benefits alone is not sufficient to determine public reaction (Rowe, 2004). If the perception of risks related to any technology is sufficiently high, no amount of benefits is liable to make it acceptable (Hansen et al., 2003). Perceived risk is also a significant variable of encouragement for GM foods (Gaskell et al., 2004). After considering the benefits of GM foods, the European respondent in the “trade-off ” group (perceived GM food as both useful and risky) went on to consider the risks and then combining the two attributes to make the overall judgment of encouragement. Many researches have shown that the public did not perceive technological risk according to a single scale related to predicted injuries or fatalities akin to a risk assessor’s viewpoint but interpret risk as a multidimensional concept, concerned with broader qualitative attributes. Early researches on risk perception covering diverse technologies and hazards suggested dread or sometimes termed as severity as one of the most important dimension of risk (Rowe, 2004; Slovic, 2004; Sparks and Shepherd, 1994)). Using factor analysis, Slovic et al., (2004) found that 12 characteristics correlated highly with one another and labeled as dread. The items were: severity not controllable, dread, globally catastrophic, little preventive control, certain to be fatal, risks and benefit equitable, catastrophic, threatens future generations, not easily reduced, risks increasing, involuntary and affect me personally. According to Sparks and Shepherd (1994), severity included concerns, seriousness for future generations, threatening widespread disastrous consequences, dread and becoming more serious.

Risk Acceptance

Risk acceptance is another key variable in risk perception studies (Fischhoff et al., 2004; Rohrmann, 1999; Rohrmann


and Chen, 1999) but it is rarely used in attitude towards biotechnology studies. Fischhoff et al., (2004) highlighted the harsh reality with modern technologies that benefits of technology are always accompanied by some kind of risks which posed serious dilemmas for societies. Policy-makers have been turning to risk-benefit analysis, an offshoot of cost-benefit analysis as the basic of decision-making methodology for societal risk taking (Fischhoff, 1977). The basic question to be answered in risk-benefit analysis is: is this product (activity, technology) acceptably safe or how safe is safe enough? According to Fischhoff et al., (2004), there are two main approaches to answer this question. The ‘revealed preference’ method advocated by Star (1969), is based on the assumption that by trial and error, society has arrived at an “essentially optimum’ balance between the risks and benefits associated with any activity. The patterns of acceptable risk-benefit trade-offs can be seen by analyzing economic risk and benefit data from recent years. Starr’s laws of acceptable risks’ are as follows:

i. The acceptability of risks is roughly proportional to the third power of (cube) of the benefits.

ii. The public seems willing to accept risks from voluntary activities (e.g. skiing) roughly 1000 times greater than it would tolerate from involuntary activities e.g. food preservatives) that provide the same level of benefits.

iii. The acceptable level of risk is inversely related to the number of persons exposed to that risk and

iv. The level of risk tolerated for voluntarily accepted hazards is quite similar to the level of risk from disease.

According to Fischoff et al., (2004), although Starr’s approach has the advantage of dealing with the public behavior rather than with attitudes, it has a number of serious drawbacks. First, it assumes that past behavior is a valid indicator of present preferences. Second, Starr’s approach does not serve to distinguish what is best for society from what is traditionally acceptable or what is accepted in the marketplace may not accurately reflect the public’s safety preferences. Thirdly, the quantitative conclusions from an analysis of type Starr performed are extremely sensitive to the way in which measures of risk and benefit are computed from the historical data. Fischoff et al., (2004), introduced another alternative approach, ‘expressed preferences’, which employs questionnaires to measure public attitudes towards the risks and benefits from many activities. They used the concept risk adjustment factor to establish levels of acceptable risks. Using multiple regression analysis, they found that acceptable risk levels can be predicted from judgement of perceived benefits and several risk characteristics but suggested future research need to be done on how such a formula can be used to guide policy-making. Rohrmann (1999) preferred to use direct questions which

included individual and societal acceptance of risk. When studying the risk perception of university scientists and students towards technology induced hazards in Australia and China, Rohrmann and Chen (1999) found a negative correlation between individual risk acceptance and some aspects of risks (risk magnitude and feelings of anxiety) and a positive correlation between risk acceptance and societal benefits in the Australian samples. Fischhoff et al. (2004) also reported a consistent relationship between perceived benefit and acceptable level of risk.

Moral Concerns

Furedi (1997) argued that societal and individual risk perceptions are proportional to a system of moral values. Individuals were willing to accept some level of risk if the product was deemed worthy and was not morally objectionable. Of the variables studied, usefulness, riskiness and morality, it was found that moral acceptability of biotechnology was the strongest predictor of support for biotechnology (Concerted action of the European Commission, 1997; Einsiedel, 1997). In the Concerted Action survey (1997), morality outweighed the variables of usefulness and risk in two instances: where genetically-altered animals for medical purposes were to be used and the introduction of genes into bacteria to produce medicines. Gaskell et al. (2000) also noticed that moral acceptability appeared to act as a veto. Human cells cloning were encouraged because it was regarded as useful and morally acceptable even though perceived as risky. On the other hand, animal cloning was not encouraged besides being perceived as useful because it was regarded as morally unacceptable besides being risky. The results of the US public survey (Priest, 2000) also suggested the possibility of the US people using moral reasoning in forming opinions towards six applications of biotechnology. Basic categories of moral or ethical concerns regarding modern biotechnology fall into two classes: intrinsic and extrinsic (Comstock, 2000; Hamid, 2000). Extrinsic objection refers to the concerns regarding the possible risks of different application of biotechnology. On the other hand, intrinsic objection allege that the process of modern biotechnology is objectionable in itself. This belief is associated with the unnaturalness claim, changing nature and to play ‘God”. Grove-White et al. (1997) also uncovered concerns that genetic modification involves ‘meddling with nature’ during his qualitative study of GM foods.

Familiarity

Familiarity is another important dimension cited in risk perception researches (Rowe, 2004; Hansen et al., 2003).


environment, technological progress, towards religious and moral beliefs and several other sets. According to the review by Rohrmann (1999), the evaluative process of risk perception is determined by the norms, value systems and cultural idiosyncrasies of societies. He included eco-centric worldview, technology skepticism and safety culture in his model as well risk-taking attitude. Gaskell et al., (2003) also found out that a matrix of variables including interest in aspects of the public domain such as science and politics, optimism about technologies, social and cultural values, engagement with the issue of biotechnology and confidence in industry, regulation and other civil society groups, all contribute to the public’s representation of and opinions about biotechnologies. Background characteristics such as gender (Kamaldeen and Powell, 2000; Gaskell et al., 2003), education, age and religion have been found to affect people’s attitude (Gaskell et al., 2003). Kelley (1995) proposed that attitude to genetic engineering is determined not only by the worth of potential benefits offered minus the perceived risk (rational worries) and anxieties or fears (irrational worries) but also on knowledge on genetic engineering and having a scientific world-view and plus/minus various minor factors such as background factors.

Knowledge and awareness

It is important to assess people’s knowledge or awareness on modern biotechnology as according to a theory on decision making (Kelley, 1995), people only form attitudes about technologies and techniques after they have acquired relevant information. Some researchers hold that more knowledge makes people more sympathetic to genetic engineering while other researchers proposed the opposite effect. Understanding has also been cited by Covello and Merkhofer (1994) as one of the factors modulating risk perception. According to Barling et al., (1999), perception of risk is higher amongst those with greater objective knowledge and those who has discussed biotechnology over recent months, but such perception is low amongst those with little knowledge. On the other hand, acceptance of biotechnology by the public may not be related to awareness at all. Regardless of whether individuals were aware of biotechnology, respondents were able to make judgement about how useful or risky it was (Frewer et al., 1994; 1996). Canadian surveys have discovered that although relatively few Canadians had heard or read much about biotechnology, opinions regarding specific biotechnology applications appeared much stronger (Powell, 1998). Kelley (1995) similarly concluded that Australian voters had firm opinions about biotechnology, and noted that in a democracy, voters routinely make decisions about policies about which they have no detailed academic understanding. Consumers will continue to make decisions about biotechnology, whether they are “better educated” or

Slovic et al., (2004a) found that five characteristics correlated highly with each other which reflected familiarity. They were: observability, knowledge (known to those exposed), immediacy consequences, familiarity (not new) and known to science. Using principal component analysis, Kirk et al. (2002) found that familiarity component comprised of items on whether it is easy to tell whether a product contain a risky substance, whether the risk is known to science and whether a person has control over consuming a certain product. Familiarity with genetically modified food has a positive effect on its acceptance (Bertolini et al., 2003). Italian consumers who were the least familiar with genetically modified food were found to have relatively negative attitude towards GM food compared to the U.S. and Japanese consumers who were more familiar with GM food. The adverse effect of a risk which is unfamiliar and delayed in manifestation of harm such as the mad cow disease scare in 1996 will have a greater societal impact than a risk which is known such as Salmonella (Lanska, 1998). This has been manifested by an immediate 40% decrease in beef consumption in the week following the beginning of media interest in United Kingdom (Kirk et al., 2002) with export markets completely lost (Food Quality News, 2004). The impact was even evident four years later with a 27 percent slump in beef consumption in the 15 countries of the European Union in the final three months of 2000 (CNN, 15 Jan, 2001).

Encouragement

This is one of the dimensions of attitude towards modern biotechnology introduced and repeatedly used by the Eurobarometer time series surveys (Marlier, 1992; INRA and Marlier, 1993; Gaskell et al., 2000; 2004) and has also been used by other researchers (Priest, 2000; Einsiedel, 2000). This dimension refers to support or acceptability of a biotechnology application.

General Attitudinal Factors

Modern biotechnology has been classified as a complex emerging issue that exhibits high salience combined with limited knowledge on part of the public. It has been suggested by social scientists that any complex object may be located in a variety of general classes where its evaluation may be strongly affected by extraneous concerns (Pardo et al., 2002). From the perspectives of several earlier researchers, attitudes towards biotechnology would be expected to follow from the more general class of attitudes to which they pertain: predispositions towards Science and Technology in general. They may also be related to attitudes towards the natural


not. Although those who said they were more aware about biotechnology thought biotechnology would offer more benefits, these same people also thought biotechnology would offer more danger. The notion that enhanced education would automatically increase acceptance of biotechnology is not borne out by these results. An alternative suggestion is that those with more education may be better able to critically assess both risks and benefits of a new technology like biotechnology (Powell, 1998). Priest (2000) noticed that respondents with extensive university level science training (those who has taken six or more courses in science) tended to be more positive towards all six applications surveyed. However because the links with scores on the biological literacy index and also general levels of educations proved weak, she suggested that closer attention be paid to other issues particularly differences and similarities in values and worldview besides familiarity, control and trust.

Engagement

Although some earlier research findings showed that greater scientific knowledge are moderately correlated with support for science (Allum et al., 2002) there were other findings which reported the reverse (Barling et al., 1999; Frewer et al., 1997). The ‘engagement’ concept was introduced by Gaskell et al., (2003), based on ‘issue public’ taken from political science. According to him, members of the ‘issue public’ are more likely to be better informed and to seek out new information on political issues, to have a coherent belief system, more resistant attitudes and to be more likely to participate in political processes such as elections. When he applied this concept to public perceptions of biotechnology, he found out that the engagement variable were consistently associated with higher support for six applications of biotechnology. Other researchers have used an almost similar concept which they called the ‘attentive public’ in their survey (Eisendel, 2000; ISAAA-UIUC, 2003). Issue attentiveness of respondents was based on combined responses to the questions on awareness and talking to others about the subject of biotechnology (Eisendel, 2000). While ISAAA-UIUC (2003) considered “attentive public” as those who are interested in the uses of biotechnology. While Pardo et al., (2002) prefer to use the concept ‘informed citizen’ who minimally should have heard of biotechnology and have a vocabulary of biological terms and concepts that is adequate for reading the science section of a major paper.

General value orientations (worldviews)

Worldviews are general social, cultural and political attitudes or certain core beliefs and values such as environmentalism that appear to have an influence over people’s judgement

about technological risks and complex issues (Sturgis and Allum, 2004; Slovic, 2004). The terminologies were conceptualized by Dake (1991) as orienting dispositions because of their role in guiding people’s responses. According to the review by Rohrmann (1999), the evaluative process of risk perception is determined by the norms, value systems and cultural idiosyncrasies of societies. He included eco-centric worldview, technology skepticism and safety culture in his model as well risk-taking attitude. Gaskell et al., (2003) also found out that certain general value orientations were associated with different level of support for biotechnology. Those who are more concerned about nature are less optimistic about biotechnology, while those espouse materialistic values are more optimistic. Social cognition research has identified that people process new information by relaying on cognitive structures or ‘schemas’ (Fiske and Taylor, 1991; Pardo et al., 2002). Schemas are abstract concepts that capture a general case, emphasizing the commonalities among a number of instances. They influence the coding of new information, memory for old information and inferences where information is missing. A schema serves both as a filter and gatekeeper for incoming information and as a classification system for the retention and storage of information (Pick et al., 1992). Pardo et al. (2002) suggested two main tasks for the researcher of an emergent attitude objects such as biotechnology. The first thing to do is identifying relevant schemas that could have a major influence in framing people’s attitudes towards biotechnology. Then sort out the different levels of generality and ideally to estimate the influence of more abstract schemas on more specific ones. In his model, Pardo et al. (2002) used three schemas to frame predispositions towards more specific biotechnology applications: technology optimism, general promise and general reservations of biotechnology.

General promise and concerns

An analysis by Bredahl (2001) on the internal structure of consumer attitudes to genetically modified foods suggested that people first form attitudes towards the overall risk and usefulness of the technology, then only infer from these general attitudes how risky or beneficial a particular application of the technology is. General promise and concerns have been identified as important schemas for attitude towards biotechnology by Pardo et al. (2002). General promise include a set of items reflecting the promise of biotechnology to improve quality of life while general concerns referred to the general reservations or concerns about the possible consequences from biotechnology.

Confidence in key actors

For the greater majority of people, biotechnology is not a


part of everyday personal experience (Gaskell et al., 2003). People come to know about new scientific discoveries and technological developments from the mass-media such as television, radio., newspapers and books. In this away, understanding of biotechnology draws on ‘second hand’ or mediated information rather than personal experience. Exposed to mediated information, questions may arise: are the sources credible?. Are these actors competent to pronounce of such matters” Are they motivated by sectional interests or have they the public interests in mind? People often judge risk according to their perception of its controlling agents: if these controlling agents have a track record of secrecy, or they dominate supposedly independent regulatory bodies and the public policy process, then people magnify the perceived risks (Hamstra, 1992; Covello, 1992). It has been argued that without confidence in key actors-scientists, regulators etc, people are likely to have exaggerated perceptions of risks, as the assurances provided by the experts that the risks are low or manageable are treated with skepticism (Gaskell et al., 2003). Enthusiasists of GM foods were found to be more trusting of the industry, government and shops (Gaskell et al., 2003b) while Sjoberg (2004) has demonstrated a strong correlation between trust in corporations and perceived risk of genetic engineering.

Attitude towards science and technology/technology optimism

Technology optimism refers to what the public feel about current technologies, whether they will improve his/her way of life in the next twenty years (Gaskell et al., 2003). People’s general optimism towards new technologies varies. Those who are optimistic towards one technology tend to be optimistic towards others. This variable was found to significantly predict encouragement of food biotechnology (Gaskell et al., 2004). Borcherding et al. (1986) developed a conceptual framework for the subjective evaluation of risky activities which hypothesized that impact of technology is amongst the relevant co-determinants of risk perception variables. Attitude towards Science and Technology or impact of technology was found to influence risk magnitude and benefit of technological hazards (Rohrmann 1994).

Societal values (nature versus materialist)

One of the few studies which included ecological attitudes as a potential determinant of perceived risk has been carried out by Borcherding et al. (1986). They found out that ecological attitudes (which comprised of an aggregate of attitude towards environmental issues, impact of technology and post-material values) have shown considerable influence on both perceived risk magnitude and risk acceptance of technological risks. Gaskell et al. (2003b) also noticed that enthusiasts of GM foods were found to believe in free market

economic values (materialist) while the rejectors were more concerned about the nature and environment.

Demographic Factors

Demographic characteristics have been known to affect many attitudes and values. According to Kelley (1995), demographic characteristics such as age and gender must be included, because some researchers have argued that the continuing process of scientific discovery leaves older people behind (perhaps because for many people scientific knowledge acquired at school is rarely updated), and because men and women are known to differ on a number of science related and technology related topics. Education needs to be included because of its strong connections with knowing and learning. With regard to risk perceptions, women have been shown to perceive more risk from a hazard than men (Grobe et al., 1999; Frewer, 2000) and perceived risk tended to increase with age up to a point and then decrease possibly due to health concerns or ageing (Grobe et al., 1999). Gaskell et al. (2000; 2003b) also have found that supporters of biotechnology in Europe were more likely to be less than 25 years of age, male and better educated while the rejecters were more likely to be female and over 35 years of age. Peoples’ occupation and religious belief are also enduring characteristics that shape many social and political opinions on a wide range of topics (Kelley, 1995). Religious and scientific elites have reached a (sometimes uneasy) truce, but the conflict between science and religion is a strong one in the mass public. In multiracial country like Malaysia, it is also important to see whether there is any effect of race on attitude towards biotechnology. People from different race usually have different culture that may affect their attitude.

MODEL OF PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF MODERN BIOTECHNOLOGY

Past models

Although there have been many studies on public attitude or perception towards biotechnology and some researchers tried to identify factors predicting attitude using either regression or correlation, there were limited studies (only two) which try to construct a structural or path model predicting attitude towards biotechnology. The first documented model was developed by Kelley (1995) who constructed a model for the approval of genetic engineering by the Australians and Pardo et al. (2002) suggested another model for the European attitude towards specific biotechnology applications. Kelley (1995) found out that approval of genetic engineering was mainly predicted by agricultural and health goals (beneficial aspects) besides scientific world-view


(Figure 1). Scientific and genetic engineering knowledge did not predict approval. Demographic variables also do not directly affect approval of genetic engineering (their effects were not statistically significant) but some variables do affect the intermediate variables. Gender was found to affect knowledge and scientific word-view while age was found to affect knowledge, goal and scientific world-view, thereby exerting very weak flow-on (indirect) effect on approval. Education has a large effect on knowledge but not in respect to attitudes. Occupation and religion (being a Catholic) did not have any effect on any of the intermediate variables. Green supporters were less favorable to genetic engineering (negative direct effect on approval of genetic engineering) while Coalition supporters (politic) endorse the

Figure 1. A model showing attitude towards genetic engineering (Kelley 1995)

Figure 2. Attitude model using pooled Danish, German and Brit-ish data (Bredahl 2001)

Bredahl et al (1998) proposed an attitude model towards the application of genetic engineering to food production which he modified later following empirical research (Bredahl 2001). Initially, he suggested a distinction between attitude towards product and process but later showed empirically that European consumers do not distinguish between risks and benefits pertaining to the technology itself and risks and benefits related to resulting products, but rather infer perceptions of risks and benefits from the same underlying dimensions (Bredahl 2001). His attitude model estimated on the pooled Danish, German and British data, showed that attitude to genetic modification in food production was a function of perceived risks and benefits (Figure 3). Perceived welfare benefits have the highest direct impact on overall attitude while perceived risks was a crucial determinant of how the benefits was perceived. The more risks consumers associated with the use of genetic modification in food production, the less benefits they perceived. His model also showed that perceived risks and benefits related to genetic modification in food production were influenced by a number of more general attitudes, notably attitude to nature, attitude to technology, alienation from the marketplace, food neo-phobia and to a lesser extent, perceived own knowledge about the use of genetically modification in food production. More

risks was perceived when the consumers believed that man has a right to rule over nature, have less trust on those in charge of the food markets, were less keen on trying out new food products and have less knowledge about the use of genetic modification in food production. However Bredahl found that his other model, constructed using the Italian data was slightly different (Figure 3). Although the overall attitude was well explained by perceived benefits and risks, but perceived benefits was not influenced by perceived risks and only some of the risks items (control-related risks) apparently influenced overall attitude to genetic modification in food production. Moreover, among the five general attitude determinants studied, alienation from the marketplace was not related to perceived benefits or risks. Attitude to technology was found to correlate only with part of the perceived benefit items (perceived family and health benefits) and did not have any relationship with perceived risk. On the other hand, attitude to nature seemed to influence perceived family and health benefits instead of perceived risks while food neophobia was also related to perceived family and health benefits besides perceived control-related risks. Pardo et al. (2002) developed a path model using the 1996 Eurobarometer data on public attitude towards biotechnology applications (Figure 2). The strongest predictor of perceived benefits of biotechnology applications (GM benefit) was a schema about the promise of biotechnology (BT promise), followed by technology optimism and informed public. General BT promise showed a negative association with risk of biotechnology applications (GM risk) while general biotechnology reservation (BT reserve) was positively correlated with GM risk. Informed public was negatively correlated with both BT promise and BT reserve but the path to BT reserve was more negative, indicating that member of the informed public tended to be less concerned than less informed citizens. Technology optimism was found to have strong correlation with BT promise. The level of formal education was positively correlated with GM benefit. Other


demographic variables had a very modest role in accounting for variability in the perceptions of GM benefits. European women held slightly less positive perceptions of GM benefits than men and younger Europeans were slightly more likely to hold positive assessments of GM benefits than older subjects.

Figure 3. Attitude model using Italian data (Bredahl 2001) Figure 4. A path model to predict perceived benefits and risks of specific biotechnology applications (Pardo et al., 2002)

Model for public acceptance of modern biotechnology in Malaysia

Latifah et al. (2006b) used Structural Equation Modeling to analyze the factors predicting Malaysian public attitude towards Genetically Modified (GM) Soybean as an example

Figure 5. Model for public attitude towards GM soybean in Malaysia (* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001)

of modern biotechnology product available in the Malaysian market.Their finding has confirmed that attitude towards complex issues such as biotechnology should be seen as a multi-faceted/multidimensional process (Figure 5). The most important factors predicting encouragement of Genetically Modified (GM) soybean are the specific application-linked perceptions about the benefits, acceptance of risk and moral concern while risk and familiarity are significant predictors of benefit and risk acceptance. Attitude towards GM soybean is also predicted by several general classes of attitude such as general promise and concern of biotechnology, technology optimism, nature/materialistic value, predisposition towards Science and Technology, attachment to religion and custom.


CONCLUSION

Whilst there have much debate on the acceptance of modern biotechnology, past studies have shown that objections to biotechnology tended to focus on specific applications of the technology rather than the technology per se. Consumer attitudes towards gene transfers are moderated by the type of transfers. Plant to plant gene transfers is generally more acceptable followed by animal-animal gene transfers while animal-plant or human-animal gene transfers the least acceptable. Acceptance of modern biotechnology applications was also found to diversify across different culture. Modern biotechnology has been classified as a complex emerging issue that exhibits high salience combined with limited knowledge on part of the public. The Malaysian public attitude model has confirmed that attitude towards complex issues such as biotechnology should be seen as a multi-faceted/multidimensional process. The most important factors predicting encouragement of modern biotechnology applications/products are the specific application-linked perceptions about the benefits, acceptance of risk and moral concern while risk and familiarity are significant predictors of benefit and risk acceptance. Attitude towards modern biotechnology applications/products is also predicted by several general classes of attitude. Researchers, policy makers and industries should consider the various factors mentioned earlier before embarking on new research and development and commercialization of new modern biotechnology products.

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