1. Via a circuitous route, to be explained later, I recently came across this essay at MSNBC, about a new study published recently in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, which purports to show that organic food makes people into jerks. (BTW, I don’t have many strong personal opinions about eating ‘organic food’, nor am I even sure I know completely all what that term encompasses. I think it includes things like pesticide-free fruits and vegetables; unpasteurized milk; meat from livestock that hadn’t been injected with growth hormones; brown rice; multi-grain bread, and the like; I think those are all generally very good things, but I’m not especially committed to ensuring my diet is only composed of them.) I’m a hard-science guy (I studied and I work in chemistry), inclined to skepticism about social science and psychology, because (a) humans are not as predictable in their behaviour as matter and energy are; they are far more complex, to start with, due to the factor of the human mind introducing an element of unpredictability, and thus unreliability of results, and (b) I’m not convinced social science and psychology types are as rigorous in their application of scientific principles as us hard-science types. And nothing I see in this study gives me any reason to change my view; on the contrary, I see my prejudices confirmed.
Now, the link for the study only gives the abstract, so one has to read the MSNBC piece to fully understand their methodology – and their motivation.
“There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” says author Kendall Eskine, assistant professor of the department of psychological sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans. “I’ve noticed a lot of organic foods are marketed with moral terminology, like Honest Tea, and wondered if you exposed people to organic food, if it would make them pat themselves on the back for their moral and environmental choices. I wondered if they would be more altruistic or not.”
The motivation for the study certainly seems reasonable enough. Mind you, those who embrace a more ‘organic’ diet include not only SWPL types, and urban foodies (hello Ray Sawhill!), but also some of Rod Dreher’s right-wing hippie ’Crunchy Cons‘, and even some in our part of the blogosphere (e.g. Carnivore and Cranberry are raw-milk fans, based on their comments here; Keoni Galt embraces a paleo diet, and eschews food with too much preservatives and additives (IIRC), and he eats stuff he hunts), who question conventional nutritional dogmas taught in school, by the medical establishment, etc. So I hardly think that one could lump all fans of ‘organic’ food, or other alternative diets, together as being similar to each other – they aren’t… Hence, it seems dubious that one could expect to find they’d all behave similarly; that aside, though, it could be worth investigating. That is, if the methodology is sound.
But was it?
To find out, Eskine and his team divided 60 people into three groups.
Their sample size was only 60 people, which seems rather small; one wonders why they couldn’t have chosen in the hundreds, even up to a thousand, of randomly-selected individuals, to have a more representative cross-section of society in their sample, and minimize sampling error. Ah well.
One group was shown pictures of clearly labeled organic food, like apples and spinach. Another group was shown comfort foods such as brownies and cookies. And a third group — the controls — were shown non-organic, non-comfort foods like rice, mustard and oatmeal. After viewing the pictures, each person was then asked to read a series of vignettes describing moral transgressions.
“One vignette was about second cousins having sex,” says Eskine. “Another was about a lawyer on the prowl in an ER trying to get people to sue for their injuries. Then the groups made moral judgments on a scale from one to seven.”
In another phase of the study, the three groups were asked to volunteer for a (fictitious) study, with each person writing down the amount of time — from zero to 30 minutes — that they would be willing to volunteer.
Okay, first problem: it appears here that ‘organic foods’ are being equated specifically with fruits and vegetables, period, while ‘non-organic foods’ include carbs of various kinds. What about non-organic fruits and vegetables? Or what about organic meats, or milk (or beer), or other foods classified as organic? Wouldn’t it have made sense to have another group, looking at apples and spinach that have been sprayed with pesticides, or otherwise aren’t considered ‘organic’, by the FDA? Shouldn’t they have started out with a clear definition in their own minds of what exactly constitutes organic food, and studied a contrast between results pertaining to organic food and results pertaining to non-organic food, of the same kinds of food, in order to clearly see if there were any differences between the two? Isn’t all the examination of other totally different kinds of non-organic and comfort foods, rather pointless?
Secondly, WTF? Seriously. They weren’t recording data from the people in the study about their own household food purchasing preferences, but instead just showing them pictures of different kinds of foods, and trying to interpret what effects simply looking at the pictures had on how they subsequently answered various questions? Or, alternately, why didn’t they try feeding them, and telling them what they’re feeding them: one group, pesticide-free apples, free-range chicken, washing down with some organic beer, versus another group who were given ‘non-organic’ apple, chicken, and beer, and THEN compared how they reacted to the questions after their respective meals, having actually consumed something, and having known what they ate? Results obtained from such would surely have been far more meaningful than these ones, where they had the subjects merely looking at pictures, before answering moral-issue-related questions, etc.
The results did not bode well for the organic folks.
“We found that the organic people judged much harder compared to the control or comfort food groups,” says Eskine. “On a scale of 1 to 7, the organic people were like 5.5 while the controls were about a 5 and the comfort food people were like a 4.89.”
When it came to helping out a needy stranger, the organic people also proved to be more selfish, volunteering only 13 minutes as compared to 19 minutes (for controls) and 24 minutes (for comfort food folks).
“There’s something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves,” says Eskine. “And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess.”
As if anything meaningful could be concluded from such a bullshit study – and such a small sample size!
Naturally, that doesn’t stop them from drawing conclusions, and pontificating:
Why does eating better make us act worse? Eskine says it probably has to do with what he calls “moral licensing.”
“People may feel like they’ve done their good deed,” he says. “That they have permission, or license, to act unethically later on. It’s like when you go to the gym and run a few miles and you feel good about yourself, so you eat a candy bar.”
Eskine says he was surprised by the findings (“You’d think eating organic would make you feel elevated and want to pay it forward,” he says) and hopes to do additional studies that look at conditions that might prompt people to act differently.
Blah blah blah, whatever.
Alas, the MSNBC writer swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker. Pathetic.
Now, I’m not saying there aren’t SWPL / foodie types who embrace organic foods and who are snotty and arrogant and moralistic like the characters of Portlandia. Of course there are. But, one thing the folks who conducted the study didn’t even consider: which came first, the free-range chicken or the free-range egg? i.e. cause and effect; is it maybe the exact opposite, perhaps; that some selfish, moralistic, self-righteous prigs seek out organic food to show how ‘good’ they are, to themselves and others? Hmmm…
2. I mentioned above that I had found the above study through a circuitous route; DYSPEPSIA GENERATION had a post here, which linked this post by Steven Hayward at Powerline, a neo-con blog (see the typical neo-con blogroll, with links to InstaPundit, Michelle Malkin, and the like) – which linked the MSNBC story; he quotes it favourably (ugh), and he smears several groups of people, in typical neo-con fashion…
The Smug Beach Diet
The biggest problem with vegetarians, and their most Puritan variation—Vegans—is not so much their holier-than-thou attitude (after all, most enthusiasts, from fitness freaks to fundamentalists, have the same attitude), but the barely concealed will to power to impose veganism on the rest of us. It is another form of the totalitarian temptation.
Where do I begin? The title threw me at first, as I thought he was going to discuss and attack the South Beach Diet, which he clearly referenced; that’s a low-carb, low-glycemic-index, high protein diet; somewhat similar to the paleo diet.
But the next paragraph, as well as the later ones bashing ‘organic food’ diet enthusiasts (because of the aforementioned study), shows he lumps together organic food enthusiasts, paleo and similar diet enthusiasts, fitness buffs, and vegetarians / vegans. WTF? They are all different kinds of lifestyles, followed for all different kinds of reasons.
How disappointing, BTW, his invocation of vegans as ‘puritanical’ – once again, a smear on the actual Puritans, equating them with modern day vegan killjoys. I know liberals like to smear those they disagree with as ‘puritanical’, but I’m saddened to see those ostensibly on the right, even neo-cons, fall prey to such inaccurate labelling and inappropriate terminology. It just goes to show how much modern liberalism has infected the mindset, even the language, of those ostensibly conservative.
As does his use of the term ‘fundamentalists’, a word itself tossed around far too casually these days; one even hears the media say ‘fundamentalist Catholic’ (see here and here), when there is no such thing. (The word fundamentalist has a very specific historical meaning (though some other groups self-describe thus); even the Associated Press’ stylebook properly recognizes that:
fundamentalist: The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. In recent years, however, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians.
In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.
Though all too often, lazy / bigoted journalists forget or ignore that sensible guideline. And Hayward shows he doesn’t really understand true fundamentalists of the old fashioned, mostly hardline Baptist kind, who, while happy to proselytize, generally wish to be left alone, and aren’t seeking to forcibly impose their ways on others.
And while veganism / animal-rights activism does indeed seem like a totalitarian, even violent, fanatical cult – and some vegans even consider it a creed – in terms of their all-too-often screeching moralistic denunciations of meat-eaters as ‘murderers’ (“Meat is murder!“), etc., other alternative diet enthusiasts / fitness types, are a lot different. Anyone who peruses the links at Keoni‘s paleo blogroll, or reads his paleo-themed posts, for instance, will NOT see paleos denouncing those of us who don’t embrace their lifestyle in its entirety as evil; while happy to encourage others towards healthier lifestyles, they don’t generally strike me as self-righteous, moralistic prigs in the slightest. Nor are any raw milk and organic food enthusiasts I’ve ever encountered in the blogosphere, either.
Unlike neo-con Steven Hayward there, who lumps together everyone he doesn’t like, whether Puritans, fundamentalists, vegans, fitness buffs, paleos and related – as seen by his title – and organic food enthusiasts.
Which brings me to the rest of his post. In the next paragraphs, he cites the study itself, and the MSNBC piece:
Social science is catching up with this perception. A new study in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science finds that organic food eaters are . . . jerks. From the abstract:
After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed nonorganic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic.
Bad news for Rachel Maddow viewers: Even MSNBC can figure out what this means, with a story entitled “Does Organic Food Turn People Into Jerks?”
But MSNBC is wrong; because the study is greatly flawed, as I have demonstrated above, and shows no such thing conclusively.
Amusingly, he then turns to Jezebel for what he thinks is further confirmation; I’m removing the link from my next blockquote because no way in hell am I linking to those man-haters, but you can find it in the Powerline blog post link itself:
The Jezebel.com summary is even better: “Study Suggests that Eating Organic Foods Contributes to Moral Depravity.” Their summary:
Science can be a wonderfully vindictive thing, especially when it suggests that people who self-righteously purchase and consume organic foods are more likely to not help you jump your dead car battery, hold the door open for you, or volunteer to coach a community little league team. That’s right, everyone — organic foodies would sooner run a child down on her way to softball practice with their Schwinns than help that child learn how to catch a fly ball, and that’s more or less a scientific fact.
I’m not a fan of Jezebel in the least, but they’re actually right for once, in their sarcastic denunciation there of the study; but Hayward is oblivious to this; he actually thinks they’re not being snarky, but, rather, are agreeing with its conclusions! Logic and reading comprehension fail – if he even actually read the Jezebel piece…
Hayward continues:
Lesson: never trust anyone who doesn’t eat cheeseburgers. Preferably medium rare.
Whatever, dude…
(By the way, some time I must share with Power Line readers my home-ground beef burger technique. You haven’t lived till you’ve had a burger from truly fresh ground beef. I actually use a food processor sometimes instead of a meat grinder, and mix a combo of sirloin and chuck steak. Then I go out and volunteer to help old ladies cross the street.)
Sure you do…
What an idiot. Typical neo-con.
BTW, I wonder if Rod Dreher and the ‘Crunchy Cons’ have seen Hayward’s post? I certainly hope they do; an internecine neo-con war in the blogosphere would be most amusing…
