Abstract
Both Herbert A. Simon and Anthony Downs borrowed heavily from psychology to develop more accurate theories of Administrative Behavior outside and Inside Bureaucracy: Simon, to explicate the cognitive shortcomings in human rationality and its implications; and Downs, to argue that public officials, like other human beings, vary in their psychological needs and motivations and, therefore, behave differently in similar situations. I examine how recent psychological research adds important nuances to the psychology of human decision-making and behavior and points in somewhat other directions than those taken by Simon and Downs. Cue-taking, fast and intuitive thinking, and emotions play a larger role in human judgment and decision-making than what Simon suggested with his notion of bounded rationality. Personality trait theory provides a more general and solid underpinning for understanding individual differences in behavior, both inside and outside bureaucracy, than the 'types of officials' that Downs discussed. I present an agenda for a behavioral public administration that takes key issues in cognitive psychology and personality psychology into account.
Highlights
Classics in our field had a strong focus on what is seen to be the core elements of behavioral public administration: Individuals, whether managers, bureaucrats or citizens, and their behavior should be the analytical point of departure; and we should take important insights from psychology about human motivation, cognitive and affective processes of judgment and decision-making, and the non-rational aspects of human behavior seriously
I fully agree, but so did Herbert A. Simon with his focus on Administrative Behavior (1976 [1945]), and so did Anthony Downs with his keen appreciation of the fact that, what goes on Inside Bureaucracy (1967) is shaped by officials who have different psychological needs and motivations
Simon is an excellent point of departure when you want to understand how general psychological mechanisms shape administrative behavior, but cue-taking, fast and intuitive thinking and emotions probably play a larger role in human
Summary
Following group theory and theories of politically motivated reasoning, human beings are less preoccupied with ‘getting the facts right’ than with ‘getting the right facts’, there are limits as to how long individuals reject uncomfortable facts when disconfirming information piles up (Redlawsk, Civettini, & Emmerson, 2010) Motivated reasoning both involves System 1 and System 2 judgment and decision-making and works both as informational shortcuts (cognitive and slow) and through simple object identification (associational and fairly emotional). Theories of politically motivated reasoning have found their way into public administration with a few important applications, e.g. regarding getting performance information right, and motivation effects apply both to citizens (Baekgaard & Serritzlew, 2016; James & Van Ryzin, 2017) and, even more so, their political leaders (Baekgaard, Christensen, Dahlmann, Mathiasen, & Petersen, 2017).
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