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Abstract
Is there a dark side to organic food? Eskine reported that participants exposed to organic food became much more morally judgmental and much less prosocial relative to participants exposed to neutral or comfort foods. This research sparked tremendous media interest, but was based on one experiment with a small sample size. We report three attempts to replicate Eskine using samples conferring high power, preregistered analysis plans, and original materials. Across two direct replications and an online conceptual replication, we found that organic food exposure has little to no effect on moral judgments (d = 0.06, 95% confidence interval [CI] [−0.14, 0.26], N = 377) and prosocial behavior (d = 0.03, 95% CI [−0.17, 0.23], N = 377). Mere exposure to organic food is probably not sufficient to substantially change moral behavior.
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