The implicit and explicit attitudes of Chinese university students towards genetic modification

Abstract

Genetic modification (GM) technology is a technology that changes the characteristics of species through changing the genes of species. Public attitudes toward GM technology have an important impact on the technology’s development. Previous surveys conducted in China used to assess public attitudes toward GM have mostly focused on the explicit level, which is recognized and acknowledged through the self-report method. However, the corresponding research on the implicit level is still lacking, which is unconscious and automated. The public attitudes toward the complete concept of GM are still unclear. In order to fill this gap, this study uses a questionnaire survey (Study 1), and interaction verification of the SC-IAT paradigm and the GNAT paradigm (Study 2) to investigate the explicit and implicit attitudes of Chinese university students towards GM. The role of education level is also examined in this study. The results show that the explicit attitudes of Chinese university students towards GM are generally positive, and the main effect of education level is significant. Finally, the mediating effect of the cognitive level between education level and explicit GM attitude is significant. However, the implicit GM attitudes of university students are generally negative, and neither the main effect of education level nor the mediating effect of cognition level is significant. University students as the future consumers and an important part of public opinion, their attitude to GM will affect the development of GM technology to a large extent. This study provides a theoretical basis for improving Chinese university students’ attitudes toward GM, and also provides new research ideas for the public view of GM.