Administrative Neuroscience: How Cognition Affects Citizen-State Relationships

Equivalence framing argues that citizens who are confronted with negatively framed government performance information are more negative when evaluating government than those confronted with the same but positively framed information. Studies theorize a cognitive basis for the observed effect, namely that citizens process negatively framed information more. Few studies have investigated this causal mechanism. This study tests whether cognitive processing, a neuroscientific construct measured via eye-tracking, mediates the relationship between equivalence framing and citizens’ evaluations. Two laboratory experiments were conducted in Hong Kong (N = 141) and Beijing (N = 150). Findings suggest that equivalence framing has a similar effect on citizens’ evaluations in East Asia compared to Western samples, with negative framing reducing their scores. Negatively framed performance information enhances cognitive processing, but only in the Beijing sample pointing to contextual variance. Mediating effects are not uncovered. Cognitive processing does not explain why negatively framed government performance information reduces citizens’ evaluations of government. This paper applies and proposes a new approach labelled Administrative Neuroscience, which brings methods, theories and constructs from neuroscience into public administration and policy.