El gusto cultural

Analyzing the influence of personality in contingent valuation surveys is important for three reasons. First, systematic distortions contained in WTP answers may have their root in the personality of respondents. Distortions that occur during the value formation process, for a start, could result from the lack of effort from survey participants. It is conceivable that, because of their personality, some respondents may not have intrinsic incentive to exert effort into considering the project scenario. Consequently, they may have wrong expectations regarding

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the project and consequently biased estimates of their individual welfare changes. Distortions that occur during the value elicitation process could also be the consequence of personal characteristics. It can be suspected that, because of their personal characteristics, some respondents may find it as their best choice to misreport their WTP answers. The relationship between personality and misreporting has long been recognized in survey research (e.g. Naemi et al. 2009; Van Vaerenbergh and Thomas 2012). Many types of misreporting have been found to be consistent over time and across different settings, suggesting that they are not situation - specific and tend to have their own cognitive and motivational roots (Weijters et al. 2010). Since personality may be the source of biases contained in WTP answers, systematic relationships between the personality of respondents and their stated WTP can be expected. This topic will be picked up again in the next section.

Second, personality traits of CVM respondents should be assessed because their traits may provide some indication of their preferences for the project proposed and thereby their WTP for that project. Both preference and personality are concepts which have been developed to explain heterogeneity in human behavior and so the relationships between the two have been long suspected (Albanese 1987; Almlund et al. 2011; Becker et al. 2012). Even though the specific form and the level of association between personality and preference still remain to be investigated, one can safely expect the personality scores of a person to give some indication of his or her preference regarding some specific subject. People who score high on openness to experience, for instance, can be expected to prefer novelty over familiarity. By identifying the personality characteristics of the respondents in CVM surveys, we may be able to deduce what their preferences (and thereby their WTP) for the project proposed would be like. Due to this reason, systematic associations between the personality of respondents and the amount of their stated WTP are anticipated. The specific forms of such associations will be discussed in the next section.

Third, from the direct links between WTP statements and personality traits that are yet to be detected in this study some generalizations can be made that may turn out to be useful as a guideline for the verification of WTP estimates of the future CVM surveys. From the discussion above, it can be seen that personality traits could be systematically related to stated WTP through two main avenues. First, some traits could be the source of response biases triggering the over- or understating of WTP, and second, other traits may be a good indication of people’s preferences for the project proposed. Identifying respondents who score high on traits in the first category enables us to assess the bias that may contain in their WTP. At the same time, traits in the second category can also be used to identify untrustworthy responses. As the scores

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of these traits should relate in particular ways with stated WTP, those WTP responses that do not conform to this expectation can be identified and excluded from the sample.

Empirical research on personality in environmental valuation

Despite the many ways in which personality could influence answering behavior in CVM surveys, no empirical research has been found that examines the effect of personality in such survey studies. One study, however, has used personality to explain answering behavior in ABCM like choice experiment. Soliño and Farizo (2014) applied a 10-item version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) to identify the five personality domains of 2,224 dwellers from Castilla y León, Spain who participated in a discrete choice experiment conducted to quantify the social value of a program aiming at forest management. Results showed that on the one hand people who possess a high level of openness to experience and extraversion are more likely to choose the option for implementing the environmental program. On the other hand people who possess a high level of neuroticism and agreeableness are less likely to prefer the implementation of the program. The authors concluded that the Big Five personality domains clearly have an effect on the choices survey participants make and that personality are related to individual preferences for this particular environmental program.

Other authors chose to apply personality concepts to investigate the typical irregularities and biases that are encountered in stated-preference methods such as the hypothetical bias (Grebitus et al. 2013). Grebitus et al. (2013) used the Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI) scale to elicit the Big Six personality dimensions of 196 people from Bonn and Cologne, Germany who participated in real and hypothetical choice experiment and auctions. The Big Six personality model includes agency as the sixth personality domain. This domain is associated with people’s tendency to be forceful and dominant, the aspect that is captured by a facet of extraversion (assertiveness) in the BFM. Results showed that the effects of personality domains on people’s valuations differed between the real and hypothetical environments. The authors concluded that people of the same personality types tend to behave differently in hypothetical and real settings, suggesting that personality traits explain at least a portion of hypothetical bias.

In sum, a few studies could be found that analyze the influence of personality on the choices respondents make in choice experiment and on the often found biases in stated- preference methods such as the hypothetical bias. No previous study, however, has employed personality concept to detect systematic biases contained in WTP answers in CVM interviews. The aim of this study, therefore, is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of personality

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for systematic biases contained in WTP answers in contingent valuation surveys. For this purpose, two research questions will be addressed in this study and they will be presented in the next section.