Don’t be a Jerk Just Cause You Eat Organic Food

May 20th, 2012

While I don’t live in a city that’s in lust with organics, I do hate that there are some self-righteous folks out there who give going green (and buying mostly organic food) a bad name.

Researchers from Loyola University in New Orleans recently conducted experiments to test whether exposure to organic food can make people act differently. They concluded that organic food can, in fact, make people act like jerks!

Nope, it’s not the consuming of organic food that does it. It’s the patting one’s self on the back for moral behavior that may cause judgmental attitudes.

The research, which is published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that the people in the “organic group” acted more judgmental and were more selfish when it came to helping strangers in need in comparison to people in the “comfort foods” and control groups.

No, these studies didn’t involve real-life situations, but I think that there’s some truth to the findings.

Have you experienced snobbery from organic food lovers?

Filed under Green Choices | Comments (4)

4 Responses to “Don’t be a Jerk Just Cause You Eat Organic Food”

  1. Diana on May 20, 2012 1:03 pm

    Is it just organics or is it all patting yourself on the back for moral behavior? There are plenty of people who proclaim what is right, who don’t do much for their neighbor and it has nothing to do with organics.

  2. Peggy on May 20, 2012 4:09 pm

    Hi Diana! The study involved organic food, but one reason the researcher decided to do the study is because there’s that tendency for people to pat themselves on the back and act superior for moral behavior. They wanted to see if it applied to organic food too.

    Thanks for stopping by 🙂

  3. Jennifer on May 20, 2012 8:30 pm

    We do think alike! I wonder the same as Diana actually. If you started looking at people who eat healthy or volunteer or exercise more, I wonder if they’d be more judgmental too. Maybe it’s not so green specific, but based on how people feel about how they do stuff as compared to others. I always start to get this morally superior feeling when I see people who feed their kids crap food day in and day out (because I don’t do that) and it’s hard to remind myself to not be a total jerk about it. Most folks could likely be nicer just in general.

  4. Peggy on May 23, 2012 11:00 pm

    Hi Jennifer. Did you see the Grist article on this? They aren’t fans.

    http://grist.org/list/doe-organic-food-makes-you-a-jerk/

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind