Non-use value is a key component of environment and resource value, and the study of motivation to pay for non-use value is of particular importance. The standard motivation to pay include bequest value, existence value and option value, which are mutually independent. Contingent valation method is currently an accepted technique for measuring motivation to pay for non-use value. Contingent valation method allows for the disintegration (i.e. top-down approach) or integration (i.e. bottom-up approach) of the respondents' willingness to pay to get their motivation to pay. However, since the contingent valuation method constitutes a stated preference (SP) approach that employs a hypothetical market to extract respondents' stated willingness to pay for public goods, contingent valuation method involves certain shortcomings, such as hypothesis bias. Both the traditional top-down approach and the bottom-up approach to contingent valuation method involve sequence effects, which may affect the results of contingent valuation studies.
Social psychology theories predict a significant correlation between respondents' behavioral readiness and their motivation to pay intensity. In addition, many contingent valuation studies have demonstrated a significant correlation between respondents' willingness to pay and their motivation. Based on this correlation, we sought to test a new theory of motivation to pay for non-use value. Determining respondents' total willingness to pay allows a transformation of the direct assessment of respondent's motivation to pay into the assessment of their cognitive level of motivation to pay. The cognitive level of motivation to pay refers to the respondents' desirability rating. This method provides a novel cognitive-based approach to examining motivation to pay for non-use value. First, we used a Likert scale to test respondents' cognitive level of motivation to pay, including bequest value, existence value and option value. We then sought to normalize the three cognitive levels, to determine the three types of motivation to pay.
We took the non-use value assessment of the Gushan scenic area as a case study to employ the cognitive-based approach. Located in Fuzhou, Fujian province, Gushan is a nationally recognized mountainous scenic area. For contingent valuation, we employed dichotomous choice elicitation. The experiment was conducted face to face, and produced a total of 492 valid questionnaire samples. Respondents' positive willingness to pay was 48.85%, while their mean willingness to pay was 23.83 yuan/a. Using a 10-point Likert scale, we obtained a measure of respondents' cognitive level of motivation to pay. The results indicated that although respondents reported high cognitive level of motivation to pay to bequest value, existence value and option value, they reported the highest cognitive level for existence value. In addition, the cognitive level of motivation to pay for the bequest value was slightly higher than the option value. In terms of total willingness to pay 23.83 yuan/a, respondents indicated a distribution of 7.91 yuan/a to bequest value, and 7.72 yuan/a to option value, and 8.20yuan/year to existence value.
We employed a traditional top-down approach to study the respondents' motivation, with split samples, which we investigate different respondents at the same time. Our comparative analysis revealed that the new cognitive-based approach was able to substantially reduce respondents' difficulty in answering, accurately quantify differences in motivation, and avoid sequence effects. That is, our new cognitive-based approach was able to improve the objectivity of motivation to pay for non-value assessment.