Psychological aspects of the rejection of recycled water: Contamination, purification and disgust

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dc.contributor.authorRozin, Paul
dc.contributor.authorHaddad, Brent
dc.contributor.authorNemeroff, Carol
dc.contributor.authorSlovic, Paul
dc.date.accessioned2015-11-04T19:20:45Z
dc.date.available2015-11-04T19:20:45Z
dc.date.issued2015-11-04
dc.description.abstractThere is a worldwide and increasing shortage of potable fresh water. Modern water reclamation technologies can alleviate much of the problem by converting wastewater directly into drinking water, but there is public resistance to these approaches that has its basis largely in psychology. A psychological problem is encapsulated in the saying of those opposing recycled water: “toilet to tap.” We report the results of two surveys, one on a sample of over 2,000 Americans from five metropolitan areas and the second on a smaller sample of American undergraduates, both assessing attitudes to water and water purification. Approximately 13% of our adult American sample definitely refuses to try recycled water, while 49% are willing to try it, with 38% uncertain. Both disgust and contamination sensitivity predict resistance to consumption of recycled water. For a minority of individuals, no overt treatment of wastewater will make it acceptable for drinking (“spiritual contagion”), even if the resultant water is purer than drinking or bottled water. Tap water is reliably rated as significantly more desirable than wastewater that has undergone substantially greater purification than occurs with normal tap water. Framing and contagion are two basic psychological processes that influence recycled water rejection.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipCopyright: © 2015. The authors license this article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104–6241. Email: rozin@psych.upenn.edu. University of California at Santa Cruz. University of Southern Maine. Decision Research and University of Oregon.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://www.researchgate.net/publication/279316792_Psychological_aspects_of_the_rejection_of_recycled_water_Contamination_purification_and_disgust
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/19440
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.rightsPublic Domainen_US
dc.subjectWateren_US
dc.subjectPurificationen_US
dc.subjectContaminationen_US
dc.subjectShortageen_US
dc.subjectDisgusten_US
dc.titlePsychological aspects of the rejection of recycled water: Contamination, purification and disgusten_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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