Nudge citizen participation by framing mobilization information: a survey experiment in China

Despite many efforts to promote citizen participation, it is necessary to keep exploring more efficient mobilization ways in developing countries. From the bounded rationality perspective, the authors conducted a survey experiment in China to explore the effects of a public–personal interest frame and a gain–loss frame on citizen participation. The results revealed that emphasizing public interests attracted more citizen participation than emphasizing personal interests did, and citizens were more mobilized by losing benefits due to non-participation than they were by gaining benefits due to participation. Moreover, the public–personal frame interacted with the gain–loss frame to influence citizen participation. Specifically, people were more likely mobilized to participate by public interests than by personal interests in a gain frame but not in a loss frame. These findings contribute to the understanding of bounded rationality in citizen participation and indicate the potential of framing effect to nudge citizen participation.