Impact of objective knowledge and self-assessed knowledge on the population's attitudes towards the Brazilian agribusiness

Abstract In Brazil, positive and negative information is spread about agribusiness. In this context of positive and negative information, the population forms its attitudes towards Brazilian agribusiness. Attitudes are related to objective knowledge, that is, accurate scientific information or consolidated data the individual has in his/her memory, and self-assessed knowledge, that is, what the individual thinks she or he knows. The objective was to identify the impacts of objective knowledge and self-assessed knowledge about Brazilian agribusiness on the population's attitudes. Data were collected through the application of questionnaire to a sample of 468 participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and an ordinal logistic regression model. The results show that the greater the objective knowledge and the greater the self-assessed knowledge, the greater the probability of an individual having a more positive attitudes towards Brazilian agribusiness. The results also show that the further to the right on the political spectrum the individual declared himself/herself, the greater the probability of showing more positive attitudes towards the Brazilian agribusiness.