A post in The Globe and Mail talked about the rise in the organic foods market, growing from a 1 to 3 billion dollar industry in 7 years. The article enteres the converation by talking about a study where identical organic cookies were sampled by participants with one of the cookies being labelled as organic. Participants responded to the cookie being labelled

Image from: The Globe and Mail

as organic as being “tastier, lower in fat and calories, higher in fibre, and more nutritious than the (identical) regular products”.  The study then went on to conclude the people perceptions cloud their decision making abilities.

This article was very interesting in that it talks about consumers perception and a phenomenon known as the “health halo effect”. It talks about how the organic theme in our society is so synonymous with being healthier people will pay more for it without finding out what makes it more organic and if it is actually healthier for you.

This actually got me thinking about an example of when simply having people perceive your product one way can actually make them take it at face value. At the university there is a specific type of garbage bag that is used in certain areas that is green coloured and says degradable on it. Further investigation into them shows that they are not biodigrdable nor are they any diffirent for any other garbage bag besides being a brighter shade of green. This may point to another phenomenon called “green washing” where products are designed to look more environmentally friendly by simply being green.

Both these situations really opened my eyes to see how easy it is to alter peoples perception about  what a product does by simply influencing the way they see it. This may also shed light on society as whole, where we have become complacent in not digging deeper than face value when it comes to buying deaccessions.