System justification and the perception of food risks

In the context of daily food consumption, individuals have to evaluate their health and environmental risks based on information provided by the institutions governing food security. At the same time, they have to trust the institutions that both protect them and provide risk information. Study 1 examined how trust in EU policies that assure food safety as well as trust in the information provided by the EU about food risks is associated with risk concern and the perceived personal control of food risks. Eurobarometer 73.5, providing data about Finnish citizens (N = 1,007), was analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM). Trust in EU policies was associated with a low level of risk concern and a high level of risk control, whereas trust in information was associated with a high level of risk concern and a low level of risk control. Study 2 examined how system justification tendencies are associated with the perceived climate risks of one's own food system, the perception of climate change as a national threat, as well as climate-friendly food choices. University students' (N = 350) responses to a questionnaire were analyzed with SEM. The perception of climate change as a national threat was associated with food system justification and denial of climate change, whereas knowledge was associated with climate-friendly food choices indirectly through decreased food system justification. These findings increase our understanding of system justification in the context of risk perception and suggest how its effect could be overcome with interventions that reduce perceiving risks as national threats.