The role of moralization in the interpretation and use of nutritional evidence

该项目研究消费者在营养领域的实际做法。营养是一种进化的和文化上根深蒂固的实践，直到最近-大约在过去的一百年里-才被营养科学的发现所加强，面对或改变。第一阶段的研究结果表明，证据-被理解为有意义的和社会接受的知识和指导消费者的行动-不仅是基于科学知识，但受到影响的美学和价值观。当科学知识是脆弱的，与对或错、好或坏的直觉判断相冲突时，情况尤其如此。我们在第二阶段进一步追求这种张力，将研究重点从食品安全领域扩大到整个营养领域。我们这样做是因为我们认识到，在食品安全监管中，风险分析框架的标准化和制度化已经取得了很大进展，而消费者则处于相当被动的地位。第二阶段的假设是，在接触证据时，消费者诉诸自己的稳定机制，这种机制受到道德判断的影响，特别是在科学证据被认为是脆弱和暂时的情况下。作为理论基础，该项目使用的道德基础理论。在此过程中，该项目强调了道德教化在以下方面的作用：（1）解释、接受和拒绝科学知识;（2）评估和使用信息来源;（3）关于健康和环境后果知识相关性的（道德）权衡。在方法上，该项目采用了定量方法。首先进行预备焦点小组，主观营养知识和信仰与道德价值观之间的关系进行了检查，通过跨文化比较（德国/中国）。然后，在实验环境中研究科学知识对主观信念的影响。该项目研究了消费者用来对营养科学中证据的临时性做出反应的（e）评价的稳定作用。因此，它有助于理解不同的证据文化和证据批评的出现，通过分析消费者的反应和他们的主观知识时，面对科学证据，反对目前的智慧。

This project examines the evidence practices of consumers in the field of nutrition. Nutrition is an evolutionary and culturally engrained practice that has only recently – approximately the last hundred years – been strengthened, confronted or changed by findings from the nutritional sciences. The results of the first research phase show that evidence – understood as meaningful and socially accepted knowledge and guiding consumer action – is not only based on scientific knowledge, but is influenced by heuristics and values. This is especially the case when scientific knowledge is fragile and in conflict with intuitive judgments of right or wrong and good or bad. We pursue this tension further in Phase 2, widening the research focus from the area of food safety to the field of nutrition as a whole. We do so in acknowledgement of the result that the standardization and institutionalization of the risk analysis framework in the regulation of food safety has advanced substantially and left the consumer with a rather passive role. The hypothesis for the second phase is that when engaging with evidence consumers resort to their own stabilization mechanisms that are influenced by moral judgements, especially when scientific evidence is perceived as fragile and tentative. As theoretical basis the project uses the Moral Foundation Theory. In doing so, the project exemplifies the role of moralizations in (1) the interpretation, acceptance and rejection of scientific knowledge, (2) the assessment and use of information sources and (3) (moral) trade-offs regarding the relevance of knowledge about health and environmental consequences. Methodically, the project adopts a quantitative approach. After first conducting preparatory focus groups, the relationship between subjective nutrition knowledge and beliefs with moral values is examined via an intercultural comparison (Germany / China). Then, the influence of scientific knowledge on subjective beliefs is studied in an experimental setting.The project studies the stabilizing role of (e)valuations that consumers use to respond to the provisional nature of evidence in the nutritional sciences. Hence, it contributes to the understanding of different evidence cultures and the emergence of evidence criticism by analyzing the reaction of consumers and their subjective knowledge when confronted with scientific evidence that opposes current wisdom.