Abstract: Research on willingnesstopay (WTP) of ecological compensation and the influencing factors can provide decisionmaking basis to establish and implement ecological compensation mechanism of river basin. The contingent valuation method and ordinal logistic model were adopted to evaluate the WTP of residents along the Ganjiang River basin for ecological compensation based on the random utility theory. The empirical research mainly analyzed the impacts of psychological distance, psychological ownership on WTP and compared upstream residents ‘WTP to downstream residents’. Based on questionnaire data, we get the following conclusions: (1) the father away from the river the residents feel, the lower the WTP for ecological service is. (2) The stronger the psychological ownership of residents, the higher WTP for ecological service is. (3) The lower satisfaction of water quality and the high degree of trust in the environmental protection department are the two main reasons for the higher WTP of downstream residents. (4) Being far from the Ganjiang River and the low degree of trust in the environmental protection department are the two main reasons for the lower WTP of the protest response group. It is therefore suggested that, when making policies the policydecider should consider residents’ psychological decisionmaking mechanism. Shortening the residents’ psychological distance and enhancing residents’ feeling of possession both can boost the enthusiasm of the residents to participate in the ecological compensation. Key words：ecological compensation; random utility theory; psychological ownership; willingness to pay; Ganjiang River basin