Factor analysis of the effects of radioactivity information on consumer behavior and damages due to harmful rumors: A central location test with agricultural produce from Fukushima prefecture

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24580314
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Agro-economics
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: KURIHARA Shinichi 千葉大学, 園芸学研究科, 教授 (80292671)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): MARUYAMA Atsushi 千葉大学, 大学院園芸学研究科, 准教授 (90292672) ; SHIMOURA Shimpei 千葉大学, 大学院園芸学研究科, 助教 (40372354)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 東日本大震災 / 東京電力福島第一原子力発電所事故 / 福島県産農産物 / 風評被害 / 放射能検査即時公開システム / 会場実験 / フードシステム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Ever since the nuclear accident that occurred in 2011, harmful rumors have been severely damaging to agricultural produce from Fukushima prefecture. Therefore, we installed a mock store within the Chiba University campus in order to observe consumer behavior and better understand what type of consumers are causing such harm. Our results revealed the short duration of shopping time and tightness of the household budget as contributing factors of damage by harmful rumors. In particular, the first factor - brevity of shopping time - has been gaining attention also in the field of marketing. Such instantaneous decision making based on prior experience is known in the field of psychology as heuristics. An effective strategy to have heuristics-driven consumers purchase agricultural produce of Fukushima prefecture may be the development of a system to easily communicate that the amount of radioactive materials in a given agricultural product are below standardized thresholds.

Free Research Field

農業経済学