Citizen (Dis)satisfaction: An Experimental Equivalence Framing Study

Abstract

Th is article introduces the importance of equivalence framing for understanding how satisfaction measures aff ect citizens' evaluation of public services. Does a 90 percent satisfaction rate have a diff erent eff ect than a logically equivalent 10 percent dissatisfaction rate? Two experiments were conducted on citizens' evaluations of hospital services in a large, nationally representative sample of Danish citizens. Both experiments found that exposing citizens to a patient dissatisfaction measure led to more negative views of public service than exposing them to a logically equivalent satisfaction metric. Th ere is some support for part of the shift in evaluations being caused by a negativity bias: dissatisfaction has a larger negative impact than satisfaction has a positive impact. Both professional experience at a hospital and prior exposure to satisfaction rates reduced the negative response to dissatisfaction rates. Th e results call for further study of equivalence framing of performance information. Practitioner Points• Th e valence (positive/negative) of performance information can have substantial eff ects on citizens' perception of public services-even if the underlying performance is exactly the same. • Presenting citizens with a dissatisfaction rate of 10 percent induces a much more negative evaluation of public services than presenting them with a logically equivalent satisfaction rate of 90 percent. • Policy makers must carefully consider how minor equivalent changes in the presentation of performance information can induce large shifts in citizens' perceptions of public service performance.

Compared to What? How Social and Historical Reference Points Affect Citizens’ Performance Evaluations

“…The negativity bias has gained considerable attention in the study of citizens' attitudinal and behavioral responses to performance information (James and John 2007;Boyne et al 2009;James 2011a;2011b;James and Moseley 2015;Olsen 2015). The negativity bias stresses an asymmetrical response to positive and negative information where "negative events are more salient, potent, dominant in combinations, and generally efficacious than positive events" (Rozin and Royzman 2001, 297).…”

“…Simon (1939: 106) The abundance of quantitative performance information available to the public raises the fundamental question of how citizens make sense of all this data (Boyne et al 2009;James 2011a;2011b;Charbonneau and Van Ryzin 2015;Baekgaard and Serritzlew 2015;Marvel 2015;Olsen 2015). School rankings are offered to inform voice and exit in educational choice.…”

Framing and Bias: A Literature Review of Recent Findings

“…Similarly, Arbuthnott and Scerbe (2016) note that mentioning the negative aspects of solutions increases a feeling of transparency. In addition, Olsen (2015) finds that framing bias is also influenced by order of the information presented, where the initial exposure to positive information weakens the susceptibility to negative framing, but not vice-versa. Van Buiten and Keren (2009) also support the diminishing effect of framing based on the order of information when they try to discover which assignments (positively or negatively framed) speakers choose when trying to convince listeners about their statements.…”

“…Similarly, an experiment by Cheng and Wu (2010) shows that people with high engagement in a subject matter are less sensitive to the impact of information framing, as they tend to look at the information more thoroughly. Likewise, Olsen (2015), who studies citizens' opinions on hospital facilities, concludes that people who had worked in hospitals in the past or had other personal experience with them are not influenced by a negative framing. In fact, they judge hospitals just like those who never had any experience with hospitals and are presented with a positive framing.…”

Breaking bad news without breaking trust: The effects of a press release and newspaper coverage on perceived trustworthiness

“…First, we think that errors, as opposed to successes, have more influence on public perceptions because media coverage tends to focus on what went wrong (Liu et al, 2010;Jacobs & Schillemans, 2016) and negative information tends to have a stronger effect on judgments (e.g. Olsen, 2015). Secondly, this kind of communication is important because it functions as an informal accountability mechanism.…”