Table 2. Themes identified from 709 responses to open-ended questions and their relationship to participant attitudes toward genetic modification (GM) in dairy cattle1.
| Theme | Key elements | Disease resistance (%) | Hornlessness (%) |
Coefficient (95% Confidence Interval); p-value2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animal welfare | Cattle well-being, pain, quality of life, health, or affect | 27.8 | 45.0 | 0.65 (0.25–1.10) P = 0.002 |
| Naturalness | Naturalness, natural processes, or nature and the environment | 19.0 | 24.3 | -0.99 (-1.62 –(-0.37)) P = 0.002 |
| Morality | Perception of right and wrong, moral framework, personal beliefs, religion | 20.8 | 20.6 | -0.89 (-1.35 –(-0.42)) P<0.001 |
| Uncertainty | Unintended side effects or consequences, desire for more testing, fear of unknown | 25.1 | 14.6 | -1.14 (-1.62 –(-0.66)) P<0.001 |
| Oppose GM | An explicitly stated negative attitude toward GM | 17.8 | 19.0 | -2.18 (-2.57 –(-1.80)) P<0.001 |
| Consumption | Food product quality, taste, yield, availability, appearance, nutritional value, or safety or consumer health, safety, or satisfaction | 21.1 | 9.8 | 0.43 (-0.14–0.99) P = 0.14 |
| Oppose treatment | A dissatisfaction with a specific purpose or outcome of GM | 9.7 | 16.7 | -1.35 (-2.19 –(-0.51)) P = 0.002 |
| Worker welfare | Farm worker safety, health, happiness, and general well-being | 8.8 | 7.9 | 1.37 (0.94–1.80) P<0.001 |
| Economics | Financial considerations for farmers, consumers, scientists, or companies | 11.2 | 5.6 | 0.73 (0.15–1.30) P = 0.01 |
1Themes were not exclusive; participant reasons often included multiple themes, and different participants sometimes used the same themes to both support and oppose GM. Key elements included in the theme, and the % of responses in which the theme was referenced are reported for participants randomly assigned to read about GM in cattle to either improve disease resistance or produce hornlessness in cattle. Within each of these two applications, participants were assigned to different descriptions of the purported purpose of GM (i.e. improving animal welfare, reducing cost for the farmer, increasing worker safety, all purposes, or no purpose provided).
2Linear regression analysis between whether or not participants mentioned the particular theme (binary predictor) and their attitude score with treatment, sex, age and education as covariates.