A Replication of “Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape”

Original

A Replication of “Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape”

Huaxing Liu, Cheng Huo, Ben Ma, Qing Huang, Z C Zhang

Abstract

ABSTRACT Why does bureaucracy often sting the public, evoking negative sentiment even when its rules are well‐designed? This study addresses this paradox through a laboratory experiment in the Chinese context ( N = 280), replicating and extending a seminal study by Hattke et al. (2020) on emotional responses to red tape. Employing physiological measures, including facial expression analysis and electrodermal activity, we examined the effects of red tape, rule functionality, and, as a key theoretical extension, rule transparency on public emotions within a simulated government subsidy application scenario. The findings confirm that red tape, particularly administrative burden, is a robust antecedent of negative emotions. More critically, the study reveals the profound limitations of informational strategies: neither explaining a rule's function nor enhancing its transparency could soothe negative emotions, let alone elicit positive ones. This research contributes by demonstrating, through cross‐cultural validation and theoretical extension, that in citizen‐state interactions, the experiential costs of a procedure often override its cognitive rationality. This insight offers a crucial directive for public service design: governments should prioritize minimizing experiential costs through process simplification, while strategically leveraging transparency to manage negative expectations and compensating for the inherent emotional deficits of bureaucracy by enhancing interactional quality.