London - Buying organic foods may make you less likely to show kindness to others, researchers claim.
This is because using organic products makes people feel more secure about themselves, weakening the urge to act unselfishly, says US psychologist Dr Kendall Eskine.
It also makes them judge immoral behaviour more harshly, his team reports in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
But comfort foods can lead to us being more social and making kinder moral judgments.
The study, at Loyola University in New Orleans, used 62 students in three groups. One was given pictures of organic produce, another images of ice-cream, cookies, chocolate and brownies, and a control group pictures of porridge, rice, mustard and beans.
They were then all asked their views on six moral transgressions ranging from a politician taking bribes to a student stealing books from a library.
Finally, they were asked to volunteer to help a professor in another department.
“Participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time... and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher,” said Dr Eskine.
Researchers said the way that organic foods are marketed, using terms such as “honest”, may make buyers less motivated to help the environment in other ways. - Daily Mail