Willingness to pay, attitudes and fundamental values — On the cognitive context of public preferences for diversity in agricultural landscapes

Our study set out to investigate if and how willingness to pay — both hypothetical and actual — might reflect individualsʹ wider cognitive networks. We draw on the idea of cognitive hierarchies, i.e., the notion that concrete preferences and attitudes are embedded in networks of more abstract beliefs and values, and explore if willingness to pay (WTP) as expressed through contingent valuation can be understood as part of such hierarchies. To this end, we elicited stated and actual WTP in a survey of public preferences and attitudes towards the establishment of an agri-environmental payment scheme in Northeim, Germany, that rewards farmers for the provision of riparian buffer strips. in findings emerged from the study. First, only a very small proportion of those stating positive WTP did actually transfer the money. Second, contrary to our hypotheses, results from a Structural Equation Model suggest that stated WTP was only poorly connected to attitudes towards the payment scheme and other potentially relevant, more abstract beliefs and values. This casts doubts on the meaningfulness of such statements. Of the ten different fundamental value types included, only universalism and conformity played a significant role in the cognitive hierarchy and informed generalised environmental beliefs as well as attitudes towards the payment scheme. As attitudes seemed to be better integrated in the cognitive network than WTP, we discuss if surveys of public preferences should rely on attitude statements rather than solely on monetary values.