Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
J Environ Manage. 2020 May 1;261:110217. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110217. Epub 2020 Mar 2.
Traditional water sources are increasingly coming under pressure from urbanization, population and industrial growth as well as climate variability and alternatives such as desalinated and recycled water will need to be considered in the future. However, available data indicate that consumers are apprehensive about these alternative water sources, with many reactions centered on disgust. It is not clear though, whether trait or state disgust is responsible for these disgust reactions. Secondly, the associations the public has with desalinated and recycled water are not well described, even though knowledge of these associations would provide the holistic understanding required for addressing perceptions. Using respondents from Australia and South Africa, therefore, this study investigated the associations people have with recycled and desalinated water, as well as the influence of affect, institutional trust, cultural/religious beliefs, water scarcity, and demographic variables, on willingness to use (WTU) these waters. The results show that whereas recycled water is associated with negative affect from notions of disgust, desalinated water is often thought of in terms of minerals, or as "simply water". We also found that affect was the most significant predictor, and that state disgust as well as trait disgust influenced WTU. Together these data suggest that disgust-related rejection of is likely due to the disgust elicited by the waters rather than disgust-proneness of individuals. It is plausible, therefore, that efforts to induce positive affect through making salient positive associations e.g. NEWater in Singapore, may increase WTU.
传统的水源正越来越受到城市化、人口和工业增长以及气候变化的影响，未来需要考虑替代水源，如海水淡化和再生水。然而，现有数据表明，消费者对这些替代水源感到担忧，许多反应集中在厌恶上。但不清楚是特质性厌恶还是状态性厌恶导致了这些厌恶反应。其次，公众对海水淡化和再生水的看法并没有得到很好的描述，尽管了解这些关联将为解决认知提供所需的整体理解。因此，本研究利用来自澳大利亚和南非的受访者，调查了人们对再生水和海水淡化水的看法，以及情感、机构信任、文化/宗教信仰、水资源短缺和人口统计学变量对使用这些水的意愿（WTU）的影响。结果表明，尽管再生水因厌恶感而与负面情感相关联，但海水淡化水通常被认为是矿物质，或者只是“简单的水”。我们还发现，情感是最显著的预测因素，状态性厌恶和特质性厌恶都会影响 WTU。这些数据表明，与厌恶相关的排斥可能是由于水引起的厌恶，而不是个体的厌恶倾向。因此，通过突出积极的关联（例如新加坡的 NEWater）来诱导积极情感，可能会增加 WTU，这是合理的。
