As we shop for breakfast cereal, body cream, or baby carrots, we have choices. Some versions are billed as “natural” or “organic”. Others are not.

Turns out that many shoppers have a bias for buying the more “natural” product, even if “natural” is just a word on the label.

That’s the conclusion of a series of studies by a team of researchers from Queen’s University in Canada. They wrote about their research in a post for the website Character and Context.

They write:

This tendency to favor “natural” products—even when they are no more effective, or sometimes less effective, than synthetic alternatives—is known as the naturalness bias. Researchers believe that this bias may be rooted in evolutionary history. Because humans evolved in natural environments and depended on nature for survival, people may have developed an instinctive belief that natural things are safer and healthier.

In other words, natural just feels right.

The research paper published by the team reported the results of several studies. (Here’s a link to the original empirical article, which might be paywalled).

Importantly, each one of their studies measured people’s actual behavior—not simply self-reports of which kind of product they think they’d prefer.

Across four experiments, participants chose between items described as either “natural” or “synthetic”:

About 66% of people walking down the street chose a sticker said to be made with natural ink, even though it looked identical to the synthetic one.

84% of college students picked a “natural” performance drink over a synthetic alternative.

Nearly 73% of college students preferred a “natural” injection that supposedly helped blood clot (the injection was fake).

Among students willing to eat chocolate that might cause stomach discomfort, 84% chose the one described as having natural cocoa.

Here are some questions to consider about this series of studies.

1. What type of measure did these studies use: Physiological? Self-report? Or Observational? (hint: These terms are introduced in Chapter 5)

These studies were all simple experiments. Let’s start with the first one, about the stickers. In this study, they presented people with a display of two stickers, one labeled as being made with natural ink, and one labeled as being with synthetic ink. People chose which sticker they preferred.  

b. What was the independent variable (IV) in this study? What are its levels?

c. Were these levels manipulated as independent groups or within groups? Explain your answer.

d. What was the dependent variable, or DV?

e. What type of experiment is this: Posttest only? Prettest-posttest? Repeated measures? Or concurrent measures? Explain your answer, connecting your reasoning to Chapter 10.

Now select one of the remaining three studies—about performance drinks, injections, or cocoa. Each of these studies had a similar procedure to the sticker study—people were shown the options and asked to choose.

f. What was the independent variable (IV) in the study you chose? What are its levels?

g. Were the levels manipulated as independent groups or within groups? Explain your answer.

h, What was the dependent variable, or DV?

i. What type of experiment is this: Posttest only? Prettest-posttest? Repeated measures? Or concurrent measures?

j. The authors of the research ranked the four studies in terms of their potential consequences. The sticker choice was seen as having few potential consequences. Which choice (the injection, the cocoa, or the performance drink) would you say has the most substantial consequences?

k. Design a fifth study. How might you manipulate the same conceptual IV as in the other four studies, but in a new way?