A number of recent papers have provided estimates of willingness to pay derived in contingent valuation surveys exceeding those revealed in experimental or real-life markets. One possible explanation for the overestimation of values is the presence of yea-saying. With the objective of reducing the occurrence of yea-saying, a new elicitation format, referred to as the dissonance-minimizing (DM)format, is proposed. An empirical comparison of the DM format with the conventional dichotomous-choice (DC)format and the ambivalence-reducing polychotomous choice (PC)format suggested by Ready, Whitehead, and Blomquist (1995) is made. Results are encouraging for the DM.
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