Why eating organic food might turn you into a jerk!
A psychology professor from Loyola University in New Orleans recently revealed a study she conducted in which she found that people who are exposed to organic food tend to judge moral situations more harshly than those who don't.
The professor noted that many organic foods are named and marketed with moral terminology. For example, Honest Tea, or the many Eco- branded items. This terminology is what made her conduct this study.
In it, she exposed three groups of people to organic, comfort (brownies), and regular food.
Then she showed them a series of vignettes about moral transgressions. Some of the vignettes were about cousins having sex or ambulance-chasing lawyers.
After, she asked the groups to judge the situations from 1 to 7. People exposed to organic food judged the situations at an average of 5.5, comfort food people at 4.89, and normal food people at 5. So organic food might make you more judgmental.
The same study also suggested that organic food might make you more selfish! In a second phase of the study, researchers asked participants how much time they'd be willing to help out a needy stranger. Organics said 13 minutes, while comfort and normal food groups said 24 and 19 minutes, respectively.
Why could this be? The most popular explanation at this point is that people who eat organic food think in their minds that they've done some good for the world already, so they give themselves more leeway to not be good in other areas.
In other words, you've already done your good deed for the day by eating organic food, so there's no need to do more.