Public attitude and willingness to pay for transgenic turfgrass under the influence of values

Transgenic turfgrass has significant commercial and ecological value, however, whose commercial application was affected by the public’s attitude and willingness to pay. In this paper, structural equation model (SEM) was employed to demonstrate the influence of personal values on the public’s attitude and willingness to pay toward transgenic turfgrass, based on the perception theory and technology acceptance model, and random investigation was used. The results showed that, the public’s attitude toward transgenic turfgrass was positive, and the willingness to pay toward transgenic turfgrass was high, the attitude directly affected the willingness to pay, the more positive of the attitude, the higher the willingness to pay. The perceived benefits had a positive impact on attitude, and the perceived risk had a negative impact on attitude. The attitudes could be influenced significantly by the different values of egoistic, altruistic and biospheric; biospheric values had the greatest impact on attitudes, followed by altruistic values and egoistic values. People who strongly endorse biospheric values were most sensitive to perceived benefits and perceived risks, people who strongly endorse egoistic values were more sensitive to perceived risk, and perceived benefits and perceived risks played a part of mediating effects in the influence of biospheric values toward attitudes. Upon this conclusion, the public’s attitude can be adjusted or changed by activating or strengthening their specific values under different circumstances. Therefore, the government and genetically modified plants regulatory authority can formulate promotion strategies of scientific and democratic, taking into account personal interests, social development and ecological environment, so that transgenic turfgrass can truly benefit humanity.