Compassion, Bureaucrat Bashing, and Public Administration

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Gabriela Szydlowski,Noortje Boer,Lars Tummers
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13485

Research Article

619

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited,

Lars Tummers is a professor of public

administration and organizational science

at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

His main research interests are public

management, stereotypes, leadership, and

behavior change. Related to this, he is

developing with others an interdisciplinary

field combining psychology and public

administration, called Behavioral Public

Administration. Address: Bijlhouwerstraat 6,

3511 ZC Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Email: l.g.tummers@uu.nl

Noortje de Boer is an assistant professor

of public management at Utrecht University,

The Netherlands. Her research addresses

why public sector workers do what they do

and how citizens see and react to public

sector workers. She studies topics such

as stereotypes, automation, transparency,

and frontline behaviors. Her research

is published in journals such as

Public

Administration Review

,

Public Management

Review

, and

Public Administration

. Address:

Bijlhouwerstraat 6, 3511 ZC Utrecht, The

Netherlands.

Email: n.c.deboer@uu.nl

Abstract: How citizens behave toward public sector workers is crucial for the well-being and performance of

workers. Scholars have mainly focused on understanding negative citizen behaviors, such as aggression. We study

a positive behavior, namely compassionate behavior. We study real compassionate behavior in the form of writing

positive encouragement messages that are distributed to social workers in the field. We test if showing difficulties faced

by public sector workers results in citizens writing more encouragement messages. We also test if bureaucrat bashing

results in less encouragement messages. Using a preregistered experiment among a representative sample of Canadian

citizens (n=1,264), we find that showing public sector workers’ struggles and imperfections makes citizens almost

twice as likely to write an encouragement message. Hence, showing your weakness can be a strength. Bureaucrat

bashing, however, has no effect. Results show that citizens can be stimulated to act more positively toward public

sector workers.

Evidence for Practice

• Citizens can be stimulated to act more compassionately toward the public sector workers they meet when

applying for or receiving public services. We measured compassionate behavior as leaving an encouragement

message for workers to lift up their spirits in daily work difficulties.

• Showing weakness can be a strength. Showing citizens the difficulties of the day-to-day work of public sector

workers, for instance, in the form of stories, increased citizens’ compassionate behavior toward public sector

workers. In this way, when public sector workers show that they are imperfect and vulnerable, citizens show

more compassion toward them.

• Bureaucrat bashing is often assumed to negatively affect public services and the public sector workers that

provide them. For social workers and similar public sector workers, this fear may be unfounded since it does

not make citizens less compassionate toward them.

If citizens want to access public services, they

must interact with public sector workers such as

teachers, nurses, and social workers. During these

encounters, citizens behave in various ways toward

public sector workers. Citizens can be patient, but they

can also be aggressive or patronizing. How citizens

behave toward public sector workers is crucial for the

well-being and performance of public sector workers

(Dubois2010; Lipsky2010). For instance, when

citizens are aggressive toward public sector workers,

this increases the risk of burnout of public sector

workers (Hershcovis and Barling2010; Tummers

et al.2016). However, a positive behavior would be

that citizens are compassionate toward public sector

workers. Compassionate behaviors happen when

someone acts on another’s pain or suffering in order to

alleviate it (Bloom2017; Goetz, Keltner, and Simon-

Thomas2010; Singer and Lamm2009). When a

person shows you compassion, it reduces your stress

(Eldor2018). A parent can, for instance, show that

they understand the severe workloads of a primary

school teacher by helping the teacher in class, or just

saying to the teacher that they understand how hard

it can be to be a teacher. Compassionate behavior of

citizens is beneficial for public sector workers, as it

reduces their stress and risk of burnout. It is ultimately

also beneficial for the citizens, as they encounter less

stressed public sector workers (Eldor2018).

Studies have shown that experiencing compassion

at work has clear benefits, such as that workers have

less stress, are more client-oriented, have higher job

satisfaction, higher commitment, less burnout, and

better overall performance (Choudhary, Ismail, and

Hanif2017; Dutton, Workman, and Hardin2014;

Eldor2018; Lilius et al.2008). However, can we

promote compassion in the workplace, and if so,

how? The answer to this question is not self-evident.

Despite compassion being increasingly researched

in public administration (for instance Eldor2018),

Gabriela Szydlowski

Noortje de Boer

Lars Tummers

Utrecht University

Gabriela Szydlowski is a doctoral

candidate at Utrecht University School

of Governance. Her general interest lies

in understanding human behavior. Her

research focuses on public sector worker

stereotyping, and investigates the effects

of job stereotyping on stress, coping, and

performance at work. Prior to her PhD

position, her background was in psychology.

She completed a Master’s in Clinical and

Developmental Psychopathology at Vrije

Universiteit Amsterdam, and a Bachelor’s

in Psychology and Anthropology at McGill

University. Address: Bijlhouwerstraat 6,

3511 ZC Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Email: g.szydlowski@uu.nl

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 4, pp. 619–633. © 2022 The

Authors. Public Administration Review published

by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American

Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13485.

Compassion, Bureaucrat Bashing, and Public Administration