The elephant in the room: How a technology's name affects its interpretation.

In this work, using experiments, we investigate the role of the name of a technology on the informed evaluation of that technology. We argue that a name can influence interpretations by activating cognitive structures. Using genomics-accelerated breeding as a case, we show that the name 'genomics' makes people evaluate related information as similar to genetic modification.

Genomics? That is probably GM! The impact a name can have on the interpretation of a technology.

We investigate how people form attitudes and make decisions without having extensive knowledge about a technology. We argue that it is impossible for people to carefully study all technologies they encounter and that they are forced to use inferences to make decisions. When people are confronted with an intangible abstract technology, the only visible attribute is the name.

Influencing governance of a public-private partnership in plant genomics: The societal interface group as a new instrument for public involvement.

The Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG) is a Dutch public-private partnership in plant genomics active in potato and tomato research and exploitation. Its Societal Interface Group (SIG) has been developed to inform its communication strategy and governance practice. This new instrument identifies and discusses early signals from society by bringing together people from different societal backgrounds with members of CBSG management.

If you can't eat what you like, like what you can: how children with coeliac disease and their families construct dietary restrictions as a matter of choice.

Although it is recognised that a gluten-free diet has many social implications for coeliac disease patients, not much is known about how such patients actually manage these implications in their everyday interactions. This article examines how dietary restrictions are treated by patients and their families. Data from recorded mealtime conversations of seven Dutch families with children suffering from coeliac disease were analysed using discursive psychology.

Quitting is not an option: An analysis of online diet talk between celiac disease patients.

This is an empirical study of the way in which celiac disease patients manage the risk of gluten intake in their everyday life.The article examines naturally occurring conversational data in order to study how patients cope interactionally with constantly being at risk in their day-to-day living. They reject quitting the diet as a valid option, and instead construct a 'diet world' in which dietary transgression is presented as an integrated part of everyday life.

Integrating anticipated nutrigenomics bioscience applications with ethical aspects.

Nutrigenomics is a subspecialty of nutrition science which aims to understand how gene-diet interactions influence individuals' response to food, disease susceptibility, and population health. Yet ethical enquiry into this field is being outpaced by nutrigenomics bioscience. The ethical issues surrounding nutrigenomics face the challenges of a rapidly evolving field which bring forward the additional dimension of crossdisciplinary integrative research between social and biomedical sciences.

Why preferences change: beliefs become more salient through provided (genomics) information.

Information regarding the method of production of food products influences the decision-making process of consumers. The aim of this study is investigate to what extent information about genomics biases consumer decision making. We investigate the exact source of the biasing nature by separating the effect on consumer beliefs and the salience of those beliefs.