Segmentation Disparities in Scientific Experts’ Knowledge of and Attitudes Towards GMOs in China

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been a unique topic of continuous controversy in the past decade in China and beyond. Although a vast body of literature has been devoted to polarized public opinions about GMOs, there remains a dearth of research exploring the views of scientific experts. The cognition-based dimension of attitudes—to be specific, the relationship between scientific knowledge and attitudes towards GMOs—has attracted extensive scholarly attention, yet no systematic and uniform conclusion can be drawn based on the observations of the lay public. This study attempts to offer a fresh understanding of the experts’ cognition-based attitudes to GMOs by employing a segmentation strategy, through which the knowledge–attitudes association among presumably distinctive expert segments can be observed more clearly. Based on the latest large-scale national survey involving 11,538 valid cases of scientific experts in China, this study verifies the existence of segmentation disparities among Chinese experts regarding their knowledge levels and differentiated attitudes to GMOs, as characterized by their disciplinary fields, institutional affiliations and education levels. This study also contributes to the current academic debate over the relationship between knowledge and attitudes by revealing a relatively constant pattern of a positive knowledge–attitude association partially and substantially mediated by perceived benefit and perceived risk across various segments within science communities.