Prioritizing Along Prototypes: Implicit Citizenship Theories in Decision‐Making at the Frontline
研究了公共部门员工在资源有限时如何基于六种公民原型进行优先排序，发现“坚定型”公民（自私、苛求、自信）影响最大，而“需要型”原型影响较小，且结果不受决策正负后果影响。
ABSTRACT Public employees are expected to treat all citizens equally; however, due to limited resources and increasing demands, they often simplify their decisions by prioritizing based on social categories. Whereas previous studies have often focused on a few or even a single category at a time, this article employs a broader framework consisting of six citizen prototypes that public employees apply simultaneously in their assessments. The results of a choice‐based conjoint experiment reveal that the previously understudied prototype of a determined citizen—characterized as egoistic, demanding, and assertive—is most influential when public employees need to prioritize, whereas more established prototypes, such as neediness, are less significant. Interestingly, this finding persists regardless of whether the decision has positive or negative consequences for the citizens. Overall, the study advances the socio‐cognitive foundations of state–citizen interactions by framing these encounters as multi‐category decision‐making contexts derived from employees' everyday theories about citizens.