How the experience of administrative burdens affects clients' psychological well-being: the role of negativity bias.
A core claim of the administrative burden literature is that the experience of frictions during administrative encounters can generate psychological costs. Using a split-ballot survey experiment with a question order design (n = 3,812), we show that being asked to recall administrative encounters i...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 234 - 250 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Apr2026
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=193631232&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 193631232 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10531858 172N jtl: Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory issn: 10531858 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2026 vid: 36 iid: 2 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 193631232 10.1093/jopart/muag004 ppf: 234 ppct: 16 formats: tig: atl: How the experience of administrative burdens affects clients' psychological well-being: the role of negativity bias. aug: au: Nam, Jaeyeong Herd, Pamela Jilke, Sebastian Moynihan, Donald affil: Department of Public Administration, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States su: Psychological well-being Public sector Affect (Psychology) Bureaucracy Public welfare policy Demographic characteristics Negativity bias Scientific experimentation sug: subj: Psychological well-being Public sector Affect (Psychology) Bureaucracy Public welfare policy Demographic characteristics Emergency and Other Relief Services Administration of Human Resource Programs (except Education, Public Health, and Veterans' Affairs Programs) Other Individual and Family Services Negativity bias Scientific experimentation keyword: administrative burden copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association copyrightYear:2026 inLanguage:en negativity bias psychological cost publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muag004 survey experiment administrative burden copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association copyrightYear:2026 inLanguage:en negativity bias psychological cost publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muag004 survey experiment ab: A core claim of the administrative burden literature is that the experience of frictions during administrative encounters can generate psychological costs. Using a split-ballot survey experiment with a question order design (n = 3,812), we show that being asked to recall administrative encounters in a welfare program negatively affects people's psychological affect. Further, we show that the responses to burdens are asymmetric and consistent with a pattern of negativity bias in how people recall citizen-state encounters. Being asked to recall encounters induces negative affect, even though the majority of respondents reported having experienced low levels of administrative burden. Respondents' negative psychological reactions are driven by individuals who rated their experience as burdensome in survey questions or reported a bad experience in open-ended responses. Positive reported experiences were not associated with more positive affect. The results also suggest that the relationship between the experience of burden and negative affect is more pronounced for women, liberals, Whites, and those in poor or fair health. Moreover, those with neutral political ideology and those in very good or excellent health experienced decreased positive affect. A key theoretical implication is that the experience of psychological costs is shaped by negativity bias: negative interactions have a larger effect on outcomes than positive interactions. A practical implication is that governments should focus attention on reducing burdensome or otherwise negative encounters. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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