Research indicates that people are often motivated to drink recycled drinking water by normative principles, including a sense of duty. These normative principles, however, are corrupted by money: If we offer to pay people, their motivation declines. This project investigates whether individuals’ willingness to drink recycled drinking water is affected by the offer of money and by the offer of information.
Specifically, we are interested in finding out how different types of information impact people’s willingness to accept a new technology such as recycled drinking water. For example, are people more interested in details of technology or concerns about national water security?
By understanding the most effective information channels, we can better understand how policy makers could design education campaigns to implement such technologies.