Measuring Stigma: The Behavioral Implications of Disgust

Maik Kecinski, Deborah Kerley Keisner (), Kent Messer () and William D. Schulze ()
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Deborah Kerley Keisner: Cornell University
William D. Schulze: Cornell University

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2018, vol. 70, issue 1, No 6, 146 pages

Abstract: Abstract Stigmatization of products and technologies can lead to large monetary losses even when there are no associative risks. This paper reports on experiments that provide insight into the behavioral responses of disgust from an economic perspective. We use a dead sterilized cockroach to ‘contaminate’ drinking water and generate willingness-to-pay (WTP) and willingness-to-accept (WTA) measures of participants’ reactions. These results are contrary to previous results from research not involving financial incentives, as most participants’ WTP and WTA values are near zero for drinking cockroach contaminated water. Additionally, filtration of cockroach water leads participants to become significantly more likely to request compensation compared to spring water, but it does not result in requesting significantly more money to drink it. Finally, WTP and WTA differences can be explained by participants’ decision on whether or not to request compensation and not by the amount of compensation.

Keywords: Disgust; Experiments; Stigma; Stigma mitigation; WTA; WTP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10640-017-0113-z

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