Psychological and social factors associated with wastewater reuse emotional discomfort

Wastewater reuse (WWR) technology has improved greatly in recent decades and may be an important solution to global water challenges. Nevertheless, several psychological and social barriers to widespread adoption still exist. Negative emotional reactions to WWR, known as the “yuck factor,” have been identified as central to public acceptance. The present study used a large, context-neutral, web-based, U.S. sample (N = 207), to examine factors underlying these negative emotions, here measured as discomfort felt toward WWR. We used a more nuanced measure to isolate what aspects of disgust sensitivity predict discomfort and then explored this relationship in the context of other individual and psychological differences. Being female, having less education, and being particularly sensitive to pathogen-related disgust stimuli, all were factors that were significantly and independently associated with reported discomfort. Mediation analysis showed that women felt greater discomfort because of higher levels of pathogen disgust sensitivity. •We examine relationships between water reuse discomfort and individual differences.•Being sensitive to pathogen disgust stimuli is isolated as underlying discomfort.•Women and those with less education are independently associated with discomfort.•Women's reported discomfort is mediated by pathogen disgust sensitivity.