Interplay of Message Frame and Reference Point on Recycled Water Acceptance in Green Community: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Experiment

Abstract

Public rejection of recycled water hinders the application of recycled water use projects in green communities. An effective information outreach strategy could help to overcome this obstacle. This study used message frames and reference points as control variables to design experimental materials and conduct eye-movement experiments to determine the effect of different information promotion strategies. The results of the study show that: (1) compared with the loss frame, the gain-framed messages are more effective; (2) self-referencing messages are more suitable for recycled water use promotion than other-referencing messages; (3) message frame (gain vs. loss) and reference point (self vs. others) have an interactive effect on the public’s information cognitive behavior; (4) the average duration of fixations for advertising message plays an intermediary role in the path of message frame and reference point jointly influencing the public acceptance. This study provides managerial implications for determining information dissemination strategies for applying recycled water-use projects in green communities.