DEVELOPING A SUBJECT-DERIVED TERMINOLOGY TO DESCRIBE PERCEPTIONS OF CHEMICALS IN FOODS

Risk perception may be influenced by a number of factors, such as unfa miliarity, lack of control, perceived consequences, and hazards being seen as catastrophic and having risk for future generations. Risk perc eption researchers have typically used such investigator-selected char acteristics to assess hazards. In the first study reported here, the r epertory grid method was used to elicit the terminology that subjects (n = 30) use to distinguish between 30 different chemicals. The data w ere submitted to generalized Procrustes analysis. The first principal axis of the resulting consensus plot separated the chemicals ranging f rom ''poisonous or toxic,'' ''harmful or dangerous,'' and ''sounds neg ative'' at one end, to ''positive effect on health,'' ''often present in food nowadays,'' and ''sounds positive'' at the other end. The seco nd principal axis ranged from ''familiar with or knowledge of'' and '' chemical'' to ''natural.'' A second study (n = 226) was carried out to look at the general validity of the results of the repertory grid int erviews using a fixed questionnaire. The data were submitted to princi pal components analysis and internal preference mapping. The first pri ncipal component ranged from ''safe'' and ''healthy'' at one end, to ' 'poisonous'' and ''harmful'' at the other end. The chemicals also sepa rated in terms of ''familiar,'' ''chemical,'' and ''natural.'' All thr ee methods of data collection and analysis yield essentially similar r esults.