Behavioral immune system and estimation of contaminated area around Fukushima

Abstract

Five years have passed since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, but food products from Fukushima are still being shunned by consumers. We aimed to determine what is behind consumer concern about the safety of these products. In two studies, we investigated whether activation of the behavioral immune system promotes overestimation of contaminated area around the Fukushima nuclear plant. In study 1, participants high in chronic germ aversion (GA) estimated a more vast contaminated areas than those low in GA, regardless of priming condition (disease threat condition vs. control condition). In study 2, high-GA participants in the disease threat condition estimated larger contaminated areas than high-GA participants in the control condition. No effects of priming were observed among low-GA participants. The relationship between reputational risk and behavioral immune system were discussed.