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Chemophobia in Europe and reasons for biased risk perceptions

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Very few consumers are aware that chemistry and synthetic chemicals are indispensable in making everyday goods because the products that people buy — such as cell phones, cars and processed foods — are typically far removed from the raw chemicals used in their production.

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Fig. 1: Surveying chemical knowledge in eight European countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Consumer Behaviour, Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Michael Siegrist & Angela Bearth

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  1. Michael Siegrist
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  2. Angela Bearth
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The manuscript was jointly prepared by M.S. and A.B.

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Correspondence to Michael Siegrist.

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Siegrist, M., Bearth, A. Chemophobia in Europe and reasons for biased risk perceptions. Nat. Chem. 11, 1071–1072 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0377-8

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