CHAPTER 4: The Naturalness Preference

Two reasons prevail for preferring natural products over those that appear to be “unnatural”. The first root is instrumental reasons, which are concrete, measurable benefits in a “natural” product over an “unnatural” one. The second root of the naturalness preference is ideational reasoning, which is a belief in moral superiority of one product over another even if they are chemically the same. Meng Li found that people tend to claim their naturalness preference is based on instrumental thinking when their preference is actually ideational (based on ideology). This explains why chemophobia is not abated when people are taught scientific facts. Instead, seeing one claim of moral superiority on a product (e.g. organic) causes people to make a suite of other generically morally positive assumptions about the same product (e.g. environmentally friendly, organic, natural, more nutritious, etc.). Marketers exploit this psychology by making nebulous claims on their packaging—or even by merely invoking natural/green imagery and textures—and the consumer assumes a suite of other ethically positive attributes that makes that product more attractive to them. Some brands are able to make a lot of money by exploiting this technique without breaking any laws.