392
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

Cognitive bias in citizens’ perceptions of government performance in response to COVID-19: Evidence from a large-scale survey experiment in China

Pages 1072-1093 | Received 18 Jan 2021, Accepted 17 Mar 2022, Published online: 05 Apr 2022

References

  • Agley, J. 2020. “Assessing Changes in Us Public Trust in Science amid the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Public Health 183:122–5. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2020.05.004.
  • Ajzen, I., and M. Fishbein. 1980. Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 278.
  • Andersen, S. C., and M. Hjortskov. 2016. “Cognitive Biases in Performance Evaluations.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 26(4):647–62. doi: 10.1093/jopart/muv036.
  • Andersen, S. C., and M. Jakobsen. 2017. “Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication?” Public Administration Review 77(1):57–U188. doi: 10.1111/puar.12584.
  • Arellano-Gault, D. 2012. “The Evaluation of Performance in the Mexican Federal Government: A Study of the Monitoring Agencies’ Modernization Process.” Public Administration Review 72(1):135–42. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02485.x.
  • Ball, S. J., and C. Vincent. 1998. “I Heard It on the Grapevine’: ‘Hot’ Knowledge and School Choice.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 19(3):377–400. doi: 10.1080/0142569980190307.
  • Battaglio, R. Paul, Jr, Paolo Belardinelli, Nicola Bellé, and Paola Cantarelli. 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):304–20. doi: 10.1111/puar.12994.
  • Belardinelli, Paolo, Nicola Belle, Mariafrancesca Sicilia, and Ileana Steccolini. 2018. “Framing Effects under Different Uses of Performance Information: An Experimental Study on Public Managers.” Public Administration Review 78(6):841–51. doi: 10.1111/puar.12969.
  • Belle, N., and P. Cantarelli. 2018. “Randomized Experiments and Reality of Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Understanding and Bridging the Gap.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 38(4):494–511. doi: 10.1177/0734371X17697246.
  • Belle, Nicola, Paola Cantarelli, and Paolo Belardinelli. 2017. “Cognitive Biases in Performance Appraisal: Experimental Evidence on Anchoring and Halo Effects with Public Sector Managers and Employees.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 37(3):275–94. doi: 10.1177/0734371X17704891.
  • Bizer, G. Y., Z. L. Tormala, D. D. Rucker, and R. E. Petty. 2006. “Memory-Based versus on-Line Processing: Implications for Attitude Strength.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42(5):646–53. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2005.09.002.
  • Blair, R. A., B. S. Morse, and L. L. Tsai. 2017. “Public Health and Public Trust: Survey Evidence from the Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic in Liberia.” Social Science & Medicine (1982) 172:89–97. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.11.016.
  • Bouckaert, G., and S. Van de Walle. 2003. “Comparing Measures of Citizen Trust and User Satisfaction as Indicators of ‘Good Governance’: Difficulties in Linking Trust and Satisfaction Indicators.” International Review of Administrative Sciences 69(3):329–43. doi: 10.1177/00208523030693003.
  • Brody, S. D., S. Zahran, A. Vedlitz, and H. Grover. 2008. “Examining the Relationship between Physical Vulnerability and Public Perceptions of Global Climate Change in the United States.” Environment and Behavior 40(1):72–95. doi: 10.1177/0013916506298800.
  • Burns, W. J., E. Peters, and P. Slovic. 2012. “Risk Perception and the Economic Crisis: A Longitudinal Study of the Trajectory of Perceived Risk.” Risk Analysis : An Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis 32(4):659–77. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01733.x.
  • Cacioppo, J. T., and R. E. Petty. 1984. “The Elaboration Likelhood Model of Persuasion.” Advances in Consumer Research 11:673–5.
  • Cantarelli, P., N. Belle, and P. Belardinelli. 2020. “Behavioral Public Hr: Experimental Evidence on Cognitive Biases and Debiasing Interventions.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 40(1):56–81. doi: 10.1177/0734371X18778090.
  • Chaiken, S. 1980. “Heuristic versus Systematic Information-Processing and the Use of Source versus Message Cues in Persuasion.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(5):752–66. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.39.5.752.
  • Chen, Cathy W. S., Sangyeol Lee, Manh Cuong Dong, and Masanobu Taniguchi. 2020. “What Factors Drive the Satisfaction of Citizens on Governments’ Responses to Covid-19?” International Journal of Infectious Diseases: IJID: Official Publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases 102:327–331. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.10.050.
  • Chong, D., and J. N. Druckman. 2007. “Framing Theory.” Annual Review of Political Science 10(1):103–26. doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054.
  • Collins, A. M., and E. F. Loftus. 1975. “Spreading Activation Theory of Semantic Processing.” Psychological Review 82(6):407–28. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.82.6.407.
  • Critchley, C. R. 2008. “Public Opinion and Trust in Scientists: The Role of the Research Context, and the Perceived Motivation of Stem Cell Researchers.” Public Understanding of Science (Bristol, England) 17(3):309–27. doi: 10.1177/0963662506070162.
  • Cvetkovich, G. and R. Lofstedt. 1999. Social Trust and the Management of Risk. London: Earthscan.
  • de Walle, S. V., S. Van Roosbroek, and G. Bouckaert. 2008. “Trust in the Public Sector: Is There Any Evidence for a Long-Term Decline?” International Review of Administrative Sciences 74(1):47–64. doi: 10.1177/00208523070857331.
  • Downs, Anthony. 1957. “An Economic Theory of Democracy.” Public Choice 19(1):111–5.
  • Druckman, James N. 2001. “On the Limits of Framing Effects: Who Can Frame?” The Journal of Politics 63(4):1041–66. doi: 10.1111/0022-3816.00100.
  • Druckman, James N., Cari Lynn Hennessy, Kristi St Charles, and Jonathan Webber. 2010. “Competing Rhetoric over Time: Frames versus Cues.” The Journal of Politics 72(1):136–48. doi: 10.1017/S0022381609990521.
  • Dubois-Arber, F., M. Haour-Knipe, and Discrimination Work. 2001. “Hiv/Aids Institutional Discrimination in Switzerland.” Social Science & Medicine 52(10):1525–35. doi: 10.1016/S0277-9536(00)00266-5.
  • Dudo, Anthony, and John C. Besley. 2016. “Scientists’ Prioritization of Communication Objectives for Public Engagement.” Plos One 11(2):e0148867. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148867.
  • Earle, T. C., M. Siegrist, and H. Gutscher. 2007. “Trust, Risk Perception and the Tcc Model of Cooperation.” in Trust, Technology, and Society: Studies in Cooperative Risk Management, edited by Edited by T. C. Earle, M. Siegrist and H. Gutscher. London: Earthscan.
  • Eiser, J. Richard, Tom Stafford, John Henneberry, and Philip Catney. 2009. “ "Trust Me, I'm a Scientist (Not a Developer)": Perceived Expertise and Motives as Predictors of Trust in Assessment of Risk from Contaminated Land.” Risk Analysis : An Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis 29(2):288–97. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01131.x.
  • Evans, Jsbt. 1984. “Heuristic and Analytic Processes in Reasoning.” British Journal of Psychology 75(4):451–68. (NOV): doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1984.tb01915.x.
  • Evans, Jonathan St B. T., and Keith. E. Stanovich. 2013. “Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate.” Perspectives on Psychological Science : A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science 8(3):223–41. doi: 10.1177/1745691612460685.
  • Farazmand, A. 2007. “Learning from the Katrina Crisis: A Global and International Perspective with Implications for Future Crisis Management.” Public Administration Review 67:149–59. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00824.x.
  • Flynn, J., P. Slovic, and C. K. Mertz. 1994. “Gender, Race, and Perception of environmental health risks.” Risk Analysis : An Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis 14(6):1101–8. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00082.x.
  • Freeman, Alan, and Boris. Kagarlitsky. 2004. The Politics of Empire: Globalisation in Crisis. London: Pluto Press.
  • French, P. E. 2011. “Enhancing the Legitimacy of Local Government Pandemic Influenza Planning through Transparency and Public Engagement.” Public Administration Review 71(2):253–64. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02336.x.
  • Fuenzalida, Javier, Gregg G. Van Ryzin, and A. L. Olsen. 2021. “Are Managers Susceptible to Framing Effects? An Experimental Study of Professional Judgment of Performance Metrics.” International Public Management Journal 24(3):314–29. doi: 10.1080/10967494.2020.1752338.
  • George, B., B. Verschuere, E. Wayenberg, and B. L. Zaki. 2020. “A Guide to Benchmarkingcovid-19 Performance Data.” Public Administration Review 80(4):696–700. doi: 10.1111/puar.13255.
  • Gomien, Donna. 1993. Broadening the Frontiers of Human Rights: Essays in Honour of Asbjørn Eide. Oslo, New York: Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget), Distributed by Oxford University Press.
  • Han, X. H., J. L. Wang, M. Zhang, and X. J. Wang. 2020. “Using Social Media to Mine and Analyze Public Opinion Related to Covid-19 in China.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17(8):2788. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17082788.
  • Han, G. H., and S. M. Yan. 2019. “Does Food Safety Risk Perception Affect the Public’s Trust in Their Government? An Empirical Study on a National Survey in China.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16(11):1874. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16111874.
  • Heath, R. L., J. Lee, and L. Ni. 2009. “Crisis and Risk Approaches to Emergency Management Planning and Communication: The Role of Similarity and Sensitivity.” Journal of Public Relations Research 21(2):123–41. doi: 10.1080/10627260802557415.
  • Helbing, D., I. Farkas, and T. Vicsek. 2000. “Simulating Dynamical Features of Escape Panic.” Nature 407(6803):487–90. doi: 10.1038/35035023.
  • Huang, Y. H., and L. Wang. 2010. “Sex Differences in Framing Effects across Task Domain.” Personality and Individual Differences 48(5):649–53. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.005.
  • Hvidman, U. 2019. “Citizens’ Evaluations of the Public Sector: Evidence from Two Large-Scale Experiments.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 29(2):255–67. doi: 10.1093/jopart/muy064.
  • James, O. 2011. “Performance Measures and Democracy: Information Effects on Citizens in Field and Laboratory Experiments.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 21(3):399–418. doi: 10.1093/jopart/muq057.
  • James, O., and A. Moseley. 2014. “Does Performance Information about Public Services Affect Citizens’ Perceptions, Satisfaction, and Voice Behaviour? Field Experiments with Absolute and Relative Performance Information.” Public Administration 92(2):493–511. doi: 10.1111/padm.12066.
  • James, O., and C. Petersen. 2018. “International Rankings of Government Performance and Source Credibility for Citizens: Experiments about E-Government Rankings in the Uk and The Netherlands.” Public Management Review 20(4):469–84. doi: 10.1080/14719037.2017.1296965.
  • Jin, Yan, Brooke Fisher Liu, and Lucinda L. Austin. 2014. “Examining the Role of Social Media in Effective Crisis Management: The Effects of Crisis Origin, Information Form, and Source on Publics’ Crisis Responses.” Communication Research 41(1):74–94. doi: 10.1177/0093650211423918.
  • Johnson, M. K. 2006. “Memory and Reality.” The American Psychologist 61(8):760–71. doi: 10.1037/0003-066x.61.8.760.
  • Juola, J. F., and R. C. Atkinson. 1971. “Memory Scanning for Words versus Categories.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 10(5):522–7. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(71)80024-5.
  • Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” Journal of Communication 172(1):139.
  • Kaina, V. 2008. “Declining Trust in Elites and Why We Should Worry about It - with Empirical Evidence from Germany.” Government and Opposition 43(3):405–23. doi: 10.1111/j.1477-7053.2008.00260.x.
  • Kelly, J. M., and D. Swindell. 2002. “A Multiple-Indicator Approach to Municipal Service Evaluation: Correlating Performance Measurement and Citizen Satisfaction across Jurisdictions.” Public Administration Review 62(5):610–21. doi: 10.1111/1540-6210.00241.
  • Koh, Yoon Jeon, and S. Shyam Sundar. 2010. “Heuristic versus Systematic Processing of Specialist versus Generalist Sources in Online Media.” Human Communication Research 36(2):103–24. +. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01370.x.
  • Lep, Zan, Katarina Babnik, and Kaja Hacin Beyazoglu. 2020. “Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior within Days of the Covid-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility.” Frontiers in Psychology 11:1846. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01846.
  • Levin, I. P., R. D. Johnson, C. P. Russo, and P. J. Deldin. 1985. “Framing Effects in Judgment Tasks with Varying Amounts of Information.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 36(3):362–77. doi: 10.1016/0749-5978(85)90005-6.
  • Levin, I. P., Sandra L. Schneider, and Gary J. Gaeth. 1998. “All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 76(2):149–88. doi: 10.1006/obhd.1998.2804.
  • Liu, T., and B. J. Bates. 2009. “What’s behind Public Trust in News Media: A Comparative Study of America and China.” Chinese Journal of Communication 2(3):307–29. doi: 10.1080/17544750902826632.
  • Liu, D., M. Juanchich, and M. Sirota. 2020. “Focus to an Attribute with Verbal or Numerical Quantifiers Affects the Attribute Framing Effect.” Acta Psychologica 208:103088. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103088.
  • Marteau, T. M. 1989. “Framing of Information - Its Influence upon Decisions of Doctors and Patients.” British Journal of Social Psychology 28(1):89–94. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1989.tb00849.x.
  • Marvel, J. D. 2016. “Unconscious Bias in Citizens’ Evaluations of Public Sector Performance.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 26(1):143–158. doi: 10.1093/jopart/muu053.
  • McKnight, J., and J. C. Coronel. 2017. “Evaluating Scientists as Sources of Science Information: Evidence from Eye Movements.” Journal of Communication 67(4):565–85. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12317.
  • Nagtegaal, Rosanna, Lars Tummers, Mirko Noordegraaf, and Victor Bekkers. 2020. “Designing to Debias: Measuring and Reducing Public Managers’ Anchoring Bias.” Public Administration Review 80(4):565–76. doi: 10.1111/puar.13211.
  • Nelson, T. E., Z. M. Oxley, and R. A. Clawson. 1997. “Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects.” Political Behavior 19(3):221–46. doi: 10.1023/A:1024834831093.
  • Olsen, A. L. 2015. “Citizen (Dis)Satisfaction: An Experimental Equivalence Framing Study.” Public Administration Review 75(3):469–78. doi: 10.1111/puar.12337.
  • Olsen, A. L. 2017. “Compared to What? How Social and Historical Reference Points Affect Citizens’ Performance Evaluations.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 27(4):562–80. doi: 10.1093/jopart/mux023.
  • Peng, F. J., L. Tu, Y. S. Yang, P. Hu, R. S. Wang, Q. Y. Hu, F. Cao, T. J. Jiang, J. Sun, G. G. Xu, et al. 2020. “Management and Treatment of Covid-19: The Chinese Experience.” The Canadian Journal of Cardiology 36(6):915–30. doi: 10.1016/j.cjca.2020.04.010.
  • Pollitt, Christopher, and Geert Bouckaert. 2011. Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Priester, J. R., and R. E. Petty. 2003. “The Influence of Spokesperson Trustworthiness on Message Elaboration, Attitude Strength, and Advertising Effectiveness.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 13(4):408–21. doi: 10.1207/S15327663JCP1304_08.
  • Provenzi, Livio, and Serena Barello. 2020. “The Science of the Future: Establishing a Citizen-Scientist Collaborative Agenda after Covid-19.” Frontiers in Public Health 8:1–3. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00282.
  • Robinson, S. E., J. M. Pudlo, and W. Wehde. 2019. “The New Ecology of Tornado Warning Information: A Natural Experiment Assessing Threat Intensity and Citizen-to-Citizen Information Sharing.” Public Administration Review 79(6):905–16. doi: 10.1111/puar.13030.
  • Schneider, S. K. 2005. “Administrative Breakdowns in the Governmental Response to Hurricane Katrina.” Public Administration Review 65(5):515–6. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2005.00478.x.
  • Shangguan, Z., M. Y. Wang, and W. Sun. 2020. “What Caused the Outbreak of COVID-19 in China: From the Perspective of Crisis Management.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17(9): 3279. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17093279.
  • Simon, H. A. 1986. “Rationality in Psychology and Economics.” The Journal of Business 59(S4):S209–S224. doi: 10.1086/296363.
  • Simon, A. F., N. S. Fagley, and J. G. Halleran. 2004. “Decision Framing: Moderating Effects of Individual Differences and Cognitive Processing.” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 17(2):77–93. doi: 10.1002/bdm.463.
  • Slothuus, R., and C. H. de Vreese. 2010. “Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Issue Framing Effects.” The Journal of Politics 72(3):630–45. doi: 10.1017/S002238161000006X.
  • Slovic, P. 1999. “Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying the Risk-Assessment Battlefield (Reprinted from Environment, Ethics, and Behavior, Pg 277-313, 1997).” Risk Analysis 19(4):689–701. doi: 10.1023/a:1007041821623.
  • Song, C. Y., W. Y. Liu, Z. N. Liu, and X. Y. Liu. 2019. “User Abnormal Behavior Recommendation via Multilayer Network.” Plos One 14(12):e0224684. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224684.
  • Stanovich, K. E., and R. F. West. 2008. “On the Relative Independence of Thinking Biases and Cognitive Ability.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94(4):672–95. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.672.
  • Swets, John A. 1973. “The Relative Operating Characteristic in Psychology: A technique for isolating effects of response bias finds wide use in the study of perception and cognition.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 182(4116):990–1000. doi: 10.1126/science.182.4116.990.
  • Taber, Charles S., and Milton Lodge. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Tanner, Andrea, Daniela B. Friedman, Alexis Koskan, and Daphney Barr. 2009. “Disaster Communication on the Internet: A Focus on Mobilizing Information.” Journal of Health Communication 14(8):741–55. doi: 10.1080/10810730903295542.
  • Van de Walle, S., and G. G. Van Ryzin. 2011. “The Order of Questions in a Survey on Citizen Satisfaction with Public Services: Lessons from a Split-Ballot Experiment.” Public Administration 89(4):1436–50. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01922.x.
  • Walker, R. M., O. James, and G. A. Brewer. 2017. “Replication, Experiments and Knowledge in Public Management Research.” Public Management Review 19(9):1221–34. doi: 10.1080/14719037.2017.1282003.
  • Wang, X., and N. Kapucu. 2008. “Public Complacency under Repeated Emergency Threats: Some Empirical Evidence.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18(1):57–78. doi: 10.1093/jopart/mum001.
  • Watson, C. 2019. “Truth, Doubt and Hearsay in 17(Th)-Century Russian News Translations.” Scando-Slavica 65(2):282–301. doi: 10.1080/00806765.2019.1672091.
  • White, M. P., and J. R. Eiser. 2006. “Marginal Trust in Risk Managers: Building and Losing Trust following Decisions under Uncertainty.” Risk Analysis : An Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis 26(5):1187–203. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00807.x.
  • Wilson, D. K., R. M. Kaplan, and L. J. Schneiderman. 1987. “Framing of Decisions and Selections of Alternatives in Health-Care.” Social Behaviour 2(1):51–9.
  • Wu, S. J., X. C. Z. Bai, and S. T. Fiske. 2018. “Admired Rich or Resented Rich? How Two Cultures Vary in Envy.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 49(7):1114–43. doi: 10.1177/0022022118774943.
  • Yang, Zhixu, and Ziqiang. Xin. 2020. “Heterogeneous Risk Perception amid the Outbreak of Covid-19 in China: Implications for Economic Confidence.” Applied Psychology-Health and Well Being 12(4):1000–1018. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12222.
  • Zhu, Dongqing, Xiaofei Xie, and Yiqun Gan. 2011. “Information Source and Valence: How Information Credibility Influences Earthquake Risk Perception.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 31(2):129–36. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.09.005.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.