"Personal Experience, Individual Traits and Attitude Formation: Evidence from China's Health Service"

Abstract

Personal experience is directly relevant to the development of recognition or attitudes. Unlike most previous studies that have treated people as identical objects, this study extends the current knowledge of the influence of personal experience on attitude formation by incorporating individual traits. Using a large-scale household survey dataset from China, this article empirically tests the hypothesized relationships among personal experience, individual traits and attitude formation, particularly examining the interaction effects between personal experience and individual traits. People with personal experience in healthcare services in the prior year report attitudes toward municipal healthcare sectors that differ significantly from the attitudes of people without such personal experience. Individuals with better health status tend to show more positive attitudes toward municipal service systems than individuals with poor health status. Personal experience moderates the relationship between self-reported health status and citizens' attitudes toward municipal governments. The influence of self-reported health status on citizen attitude is stronger for inexperienced individuals than for experienced individuals. In addition, this article also examines the contribution of satisfaction with healthcare service encounter to citizen attitudes toward municipal healthcare sector, which reaffirm that both personal experience of and satisfaction with public service greatly influences citizens' attitudes toward and trust in government.