Seals-of-approval have been employed as one of the information sources at the time of purchase. However, little is known about how seals’ sponsoring organizations affect consumers’ decision making and how consumers use seals in different food categories such as healthy-seeming vs. unhealthy-seeming products. Applying Consumers’ Decision Making Model and Signaling Theory to the above inquiry, I propose that people who are exposed to healthy-seeming food products are using seals-of-approval to evaluate brand quality and credible third-party seals may significantly affect their brand attitude and buying decision. In contrast, the seals-of-approval on unhealthy-seeming food products may not affect significantly consumers’ brand attitude or buying intention because consumers rely more on their previous experience such as taste when choosing unhealthy foods. After this theoretical proposition, next step will be an experimental survey to test suggested hypotheses. / text

In political science there has always been an interest in the factors that affect the approval ratings of politicians, particularly the president. However, more recently that interest has been extended to the governors of the fifty states. This thesis explores that very question by focusing on the economy. Economic conditions for thirty-one different states were analyzed for three years covering the recent recession. The analysis revealed that traditional economic factors may not play as big a role in determining approval ratings as what was previously thought.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-122)

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This study is concerned with the extent that social acceptance for a person in one group remains the same for that person in another group, or the constancy of a person's role in different group situations.

Genetic modification presents the potential to advance not only agricultural production but to increase quality of life as well. The potential this innovation presents will be irrelevant if the public is unwilling to accept and adopt it. The following study examines public perceptions of biotechnology, specifically the consumer approval of genetically modified food products. This study was based on data collected from a national survey conducted in both the United States and South Korea. The United States survey was designed to be nationally representative and consisted of 1201 respondents. The South Korean survey was also designed to be nationally representative and consisted of 1054 respondents Analysis was conducted using two questions from the survey questionnaire as dependent variables: (1) approval of the use of genetic modification in the creation of plant-based food products, and (2) approval of the use of genetic modification in the creation of animal-based food products. This study utilized probit models for binary choice and ordered probit models to analyze the likelihood of consumer approval of the use of genetic modification for the creation of food products. Findings indicated that consumers in the U.S. and South Korea who possessed an accurate knowledge of the applications and outcomes of GM technology were more likely to approve of its use for the creation of foods than those who had inaccurate or no knowledge of the technology. Additionally, the majority of consumers in the U.S. and South Korea believe that GM foods should be labeled as such. Those consumers who felt GM labeling to be necessary were less likely to approve of the GM of foods than those who did not feel GM labeling to be necessary. It was also found that consumers in both countries are less approving of the GM of animals than the GM of plants. Consumer approval of the use of genetic modification in the creation of food products can be increased with proper education that provides accurate knowledge of the applications of GM. Labeling of GM products is likely to result in a decrease in demand, which may be offset by public educational campaigns.

I reassess the influence of presidential approval on state legislative election outcomes, incorporating the period from the 1940s to the 1970s in my analysis. Previous research finds that presidential approval has a significant effect, but such findings may be biased-they focus on elections after the 1970s, when the president was more visible to the public. Using an original state partisan balance dataset, I measure the effects of presidential approval and find that it has as much influence on state legislative elections from the 1940s to the early 1970s. These findings may engender concerns of state legislative accountability-if state legislators’ electoral prospects become increasingly reliant upon assessments of the president than themselves, they are less likely to feel beholden to voters and uphold their interests.

Religion and gender have been found to play significant roles in shaping po- litical attitudes such as party identification and ideology. While much of the focus has been on the "religion gap" and the "gender gap," little empirical research has explored how religion affects the political attitudes of men and women differently. Using a 2004 Pew survey, this study examines how religion and gender interact to affect four different areas of President Bush's approval in 2004: general approval, economic policy approval, foreign policy approval, and social policy approval. The results support a "religious gender gap" theory, where the effect of gender on presi- dential approval varies across levels of religious commitment. For general, economic policy, and foreign policy approval, secular men and women are more similar on average than highly religious men and women. For social policy approval, highly religious men and women are more similar on average than secular men and women.

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