WHAT DETERMINES TRUST IN INFORMATION ABOUT FOOD-RELATED RISKS - UNDERLYING PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTS

Trust in risk information about food related-hazards may be an importa nt determinant of public reactions to risk information. One of the cen tral questions addressed by the risk communication literature is why s ome individuals and organizations are trusted as sources of risk infor mation and others are not. Industry and government often lack public t rust, whereas other sources (for example, consumer organizations, the quality media, medical doctors) are highly trusted. Problematically, p revious surveys and questionnaire studies have utilized questions gene rated by the investigators themselves to assess public perceptions of trust in different sources. Furthermore, no account of the hazard doma in was made. In the first study reported here, semistructured intervie wing was used to elicit underpinning constructs determining trust and distrust in different sources providing food-related risk information (n = 35). In the second study, the repertory grid method was used to e licit the terminology that respondents use to distinguish between diff erent potential food-related information sources (n = 35), the data be ing submitted to generalised Procrustes analysis. The results of the t wo studies were combined and validated in survey research (n = 888) wh ere factor analysis indicated that knowledge in itself does not lead t o trust, but that trusted sources are seen to be characterised by mult iple positive attributes. Contrary to previous research, complete free dom does not lead to trust-rather sources which possess moderate accou ntability are seen to be the most trusted.