Negative media reporting and its effects on performance information use in public spending

Figures & data

Figure 1. Screenshot of the English translation of the task in the treatment condition implemented in MouselabWEB. The original experiment was conducted in German.

Figure 2. Experimental procedure.

Table 1. Manipulation check for the between-subjects factor.

Wording of the questions	Mean	Sd
How negative do you perceive the media statements with respect to the municipal-owned hospitals’ performance to be? ^a	2.92	1.50
How positive do you perceive the media statements with respect to the municipal-owned hospitals’ performance to be? ^b	5.70	1.15

^aPossible answers range from very negative (‘1’) to not very negative (‘7’). ^bPossible answers range from very positive (‘1’) to not very positive (‘7’).

Table 2. Manipulation check for the within-subjects factor.

Performance evaluation	Mean	Sd
RLP	70.47	13.97
RHP	84.36	8.74

The participants had to evaluate the performance of the managers of the RLP and the RHP on a 101-point scale from 0 (“poor”) to 100 (“excellent”).

Table 3. Willingness to spend money by condition.

Willingness to spend	Mean	Sd
No negative media	3.80	.68
Negative media	4.07	.79

Possible answers range from much less (“1”) to much more money (“7”) compared to previous years.

Table 4. Willingness to spend money for public services.

Panel A. Average willingness to spend money on the RLP and the RHP by condition. ^a
Willingness to spend on the RLP			Willingness to spend on the RHP
	Mean	Sd	Mean		Sd
No negative media	3.65	.63	3.95		1.03
Negative media	4.16	.99	3.97		.80
Panel B. Mixed model ANOVA for the outcome data.
Source ^b	Df	SS	MS	F-value	p-value
Between-subjects
Negative media (NM)	1	2.703	2.703	2.475	.060 ^c
Error	72	78.622	1.092
Within-subjects
Relative performance (RP)	1	.108	.108	.246	.311 ^c
NM x RP	1	2.189	2.189	4.972	.029 ^d
Error	72	31.703	.440

^aPossible answers range from much less (‘1’) to much more money (‘7’) compared to previous years. ^bThe between-subjects factor is that participants either received quotes from media reports, which presented the performance of the public hospitals in a negative light, or received no such quotes. The within-subjects factor is the willingness to spend money on the RLP and the RHP. ^cThe p-values are one-tailed. ^dThe p-value is two-tailed.

Figure 3. Average willingness to spend money on the RLP and the RHP by condition.

Table 5. Average amount of time participants spent on all performance information by condition.

Time spent on performance information per subject	Mean	Sd
No negative media	36,956	21,374
Negative media	44,960	43,489

Time in milliseconds.

Table 6. Time spent on performance information in the predecisional information search.

Panel A. Average time participants spent on the performance information of the RLP and the RHP by conditions. ^a
	Time spent on performance information of the RLP		Time spent on performance information of the RHP
	Mean	Sd	Mean	Sd
No negative media	20,565	12,075	16,392	11,842
Negative media	28,878	28,170	16,082	16,578
Panel B. Mixed model ANOVA for the process data.
Source ^b	Df	SS	MS	F-value	p-value
Between-subjects
Negative media (NM)	1	5.93E+08	5.93E+08	1.009	.159 ^c
Error	72	4.23E+10	5.87E+08
Within-subjects
Relative performance (RP)	1	266E+09	266E+09	29.542	.000 ^c
NM x RP	1	6.88E+08	6.88E+08	7.630	.007 ^d
Error	72	6.49E+09	9.02E+07

^aTime in milliseconds. ^b The between-subjects factor is that participants either received quotes from media reports, which presented the performance of the public hospitals in a negative light, or received no such quotes. The within-subjects factor is the time that the participants spent on the performance information of the RLP and the RHP. ^c The p-values are one-tailed. ^d The p-value is two-tailed.

Figure 4. Average time in milliseconds that participants spent on the performance information of the RLP and the RHP by condition.

Table

Measure	Explanation	Actual value Hospital A	Percentage change compared to the average over the past three years Hospital A	Actual value Hospital B	Percentage change compared to the average over the past three years Hospital B
Profit after subsidies	Indicates the profit of the hospital after being subsidized by the municipality.	614,500 €	+9.33	613,000 €	+9.49
Return on equity after subsidies	Indicates the return on equity of the hospital after being subsidizing by the municipality.	2.78%	+7.59	2.79%	+7.43
Patients’ satisfaction	Indicates which percentage of patients is satisfied with the treatment.	88%	+4.55	88%	+8.65
Treated patients	Indicates the number of patients treated.	25,000	+3.91	25,000	+8.27