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20 results

  • The impact of online platform transparency of information on consumers’ choices

  • GIUSEPPE A. VELTRI, FRANCISCO LUPIÁÑEZ-VILLANUEVA, FRANS FOLKVORD, ALEXANDRA THEBEN, GEORGE GASKELL
  • Journal:
    Behavioural Public Policy / Volume 7 / Issue 1 / January 2023
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 June 2020, pp. 55-82
    • Article
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  • Millions of Europeans use online platforms with almost blind trust that the platforms operate in the interests of the consumer. However, the presentation of search results, transparency about contractual parties and the publication of user reviews that contribute to the value of online platforms in Europe's Single Digital Market also pose significant risks regarding consumer protection and market competition. The current study investigates how enhanced information transparency in online platforms might affect consumers’ trust in online activities and choice behaviour. Following an exploratory qualitative study, three online discrete-choice experiments were conducted with representative samples of 1200 respondents in each of four countries: Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK. The objective of the experiments was to test whether increased transparency in the presentation of online search information, details of contractual entities and the implications for consumer protection and user reviews and ratings would affect consumers’ choices. The results show that increased online transparency increases the probability of product selection. A comparison across the four countries found that the similarities in responses to online transparency were far greater than the differences. The findings are discussed in relation to the biases and heuristics identified in behavioural science. In conclusion, recommendations are made to increase online transparency, which the empirical evidence of this study shows would benefit both users and platform operators.

The Cambridge Handbook of Social Representations
  • Edited by Gordon Sammut, Eleni Andreouli, George Gaskell, Jaan Valsiner
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    25 May 2015
  • A social representations approach offers an empirical utility for addressing myriad social concerns such as social order, ecological sustainability, national identity, racism, religious communities, the public understanding of science, health and social marketing. The core aspects of social representations theory have been debated over many years and some still remain widely misunderstood. This Handbook provides an overview of these core aspects and brings together theoretical strands and developments in the theory, some of which have become pillars in the social sciences in their own right. Academics and students in the social sciences working with concepts and methods such as social identity, discursive psychology, positioning theory, semiotics, attitudes, risk perception and social values will find this an invaluable resource.

  • 4 - The public's view of science

  • Edited by David J. Bennett, St Edmund's College, Cambridge, Richard C. Jennings, University of Cambridge
  • Foreword by Walter Bodmer
  • Book:
    Successful Science Communication
    Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    29 September 2011, pp 60-76

  • Summary

    Why take the public seriously?

    The focus in this chapter is on public perceptions of science, taking biotechnology and the life sciences as an exemplar. From almost its outset in 1974, with the application to patent recombinant DNA, biotechnology has been understood as having far-reaching implications for the lives of us all. In 1975, scientists agreed at the Asilomar Conference in California to a voluntary moratorium on their research, such was the scale of their concern about the potential and unknown health and safety issues associated with this new technology. But the economic benefits of biotechnology soon became its focal point, and the moratorium was soon lifted. In 1979 a European Community report entitled The Biosociety described biotechnology as central to economic competitiveness in subsequent years. But even at that time, the European public was uneasy and troubled by the idea of gene technology. As Mark Cantley, then a senior member of the European Commission, wrote, ‘what the sector ignored above all was public perception . . . the public were learning to see gene technology, genetic engineering, biotechnology and so on as a single, vague and disquieting phenomenon’ (Cantley 1992). A Eurobarometer survey in 1979 found that 49 per cent of the European public saw genetic research as an unacceptable risk and a similar percentage thought the same about ‘synthetic food’, or what we now call GM food (Gaskell 2004).

    However, the early warning signals from the public went unheeded. In the 1990s, the life sciences project, embracing medical, pharmaceutical, industrial and agri-food technologies based on recombinant DNA, took off led by European and North American multinational companies. They based their strategy on the market model of innovation, depicted in Figure 4.1 (Gaskell 2008). Here success in the process of innovation is contingent on gaining the support of the regulators and the market forces.