Emotional Responses to Episodic Performance Information: A Lab Experiment

Government performance information is being increasingly communicated to citizens. Research especially in behavioural public administration and policy has shown that how citizens respond to such information is influenced by a range of heuristics and related cognitive biases (Battaglio et al., 2019). One area of research has been the importance of episodic information compared to statistical information, or “stories” versus “numbers” (Piotrowski et al., 2019). Yet, much of extant research has relied on survey experiments typically aimed at measuring citizens’ satisfaction based on different ways of presenting government performance information. Such research has been very valuable, but has limited the field to the measurement of attitudes and perceptions, and not actual behaviour.
We engage in a lab experiment to identify emotional responses to government performance information. Specifically, we seek to identify whether adding episodic information (i.e. a story) to negative government performance information increases negative emotional responses from participants. A student sample of 147 respondents from Hong Kong took part in our lab experiment, all were presented a real case of negative government performance in Hong Kong using statistical data and were asked to assess their satisfaction with government’s performance in the specific case. The treatment group in addition got a relatable story from a fictional student added to that information, and we hypothesize that such a story increases negative emotional responses from these participants. Facial expression analysis is used to capture negative emotional responses, including anger, sadness and frustration. The experiment received ethical approval from the home university and was pre-registered.
Initial results run counter to our hypotheses. The story did not increase negative emotions significantly. To further unravel this result, we also analysed the open text comments made by the participants during the experiment. Specifically, we asked them to indicate in text how they felt about the government’s performance in the specific case. Interestingly, here we did see a significant effect of episodic information on the emotion expressed in the text. These findings indicate the limitations of relying on emotional responses measured through facial expression analysis (Hattke et al., 2020). Indeed, in Confucian cultures showing emotions is not considered an admirable trait, which has consequences especially from a comparative public administration perspective. Moreover, these findings have important implications for public administration theory and research, as they indicate the importance of context in understand performance information and showcase ways in which the field can go beyond measuring attitudes and perceptions.
References:
Battaglio Jr, R. P., Belardinelli, P., Bellé, N., & Cantarelli, P. (2019). Behavioral public administration ad fontes: A synthesis of research on bounded rationality, cognitive biases, and nudging in public organizations. Public Administration Review, 79(3), 304-320.
Hattke, F., Hensel, D., & Kalucza, J. (2020). Emotional responses to bureaucratic red tape. Public Administration Review, 80(1), 53-63.
Piotrowski, S., Grimmelikhuijsen, S., & Deat, F. (2019). Numbers over narratives? How government message strategies affect citizens’ attitudes. Public Performance & Management Review, 42(5), 1005-1028.