Environmental decisions require public participation and therefore knowledge of the ways in which the public values natural resources and the environment. Contemporary techniques, such as willingness-to-pay and cost-benefit analysis, provide a narrow economic measure of value and consequently fail to include the emotional and moral content that is at the core of any value. It is difficult to reflect public feelings about the environment and related policy preferences without careful elicitation of the emotional and moral components of value. This project will develop experimental techniques for eliciting values embedded in narratives and discourse, and rich in moral and emotional content. The values these techniques elicit will be compared to the methods and findings of other researchers interested in environmental values. In a second stage, findings will be used to measure support for environmental action decisions. By improving methods for values elicitation this research attempts to increase understandings of public support or opposition for actions concerning the environment. Research results will be reported in publications in relevant scientific and policy-oriented journals; presentations at professional and publicly-oriented meetings and conferences; and the successful techniques will be incorporated into the applied research conducted by the research institution.
