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Measuring the Impacts of Different Messengers on Consumer Preferences for Products Irrigated with Recycled Water: A Field Experiment
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- Author / Creator
- Schmidt, Alix
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This study tests how different messengers - scientists, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and newspapers - influence consumer behaviour. We conducted framed field experiments to compare the effects of these messengers on consumers’ monetary bids on different items produced with recycled and conventional irrigation water. Using recycled wastewater for agricultural irrigation has the potential to conserve substantial amounts of fresh water. Although it has been shown that using recycled water for irrigating for both edible and inedible crops can be safe for human consumption, people may stigmatize these products since the origin of the wastewater is too apparent. Providing consumers with information about recycled water can help ameliorate their negative perceptions, and the effectiveness of such information depends on who is the messenger. Our results suggest that participants respond least favourably to the scientist messenger and most favourably to the newspaper messenger. Further analysis shows that consumer responses to the scientist messenger fall into two general categories: (1) individuals who refused to place bids and (2) individuals who did place relatively larger bids in response to information from scientists.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Spring 2018
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.