Granulo Armin, Fuchs Christoph, Böhm Robert
Department of Marketing, Strategy, and Leadership, TUM School of Management, Technical University of Munich, Munich 80333, Germany.
Department of Marketing and International Business, Faculty of Business, Economics, and Statistics, University of Vienna, Vienna 1090, Austria.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 May 6;122(18):e2409907122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2409907122. Epub 2025 May 1.
Governments need to develop and implement effective policies to address pressing societal problems of our time, such as climate change and global pandemics. While some policies focus on changing individual thoughts and behaviors (e.g., informational interventions, behavioral nudges), others involve systemic changes (e.g., car bans, vaccination mandates). Policymakers may use system-level policies to achieve socially desirable outcomes, yet often refrain from doing so because they anticipate public opposition. In this article, we propose that people's psychological reactance driving this opposition is a transient phenomenon that dissipates once system-level policies are in place. Using secondary survey data ( = 49,674) and experimental data (six studies; = 4,629; all preregistered), we document that psychological reactance to system-level policies is greater when they are planned (ex ante implementation) than when they are already implemented (ex post implementation). We further demonstrate that this effect can be observed across various intervention contexts and provide insights into its underlying psychological mechanisms. Specifically, ex ante vs. ex post the system-level policy's implementation, individuals focus more on the transition-induced personal losses than on the prospective societal outcome gains. In line with this perspective, we show that the decline in reactance to system-level policies after their implementation is mediated and moderated by the salience of personal losses, and that the initial reactance to such policies is mitigated by the salience of societal gains. These findings suggest that the public's negative reactions to system-level policies are more transient than previously thought and can help policymakers design effective interventions.
政府需要制定和实施有效的政策，以解决我们这个时代紧迫的社会问题，如气候变化和全球大流行。虽然一些政策侧重于改变个人的思想和行为（如信息干预、行为助推），但其他政策则涉及系统性变革（如汽车禁令、疫苗接种强制令）。政策制定者可能会使用系统性政策来实现社会期望的结果，但往往因预计会遭到公众反对而不这样做。在本文中，我们提出，导致这种反对的人们的心理抗拒是一种短暂现象，一旦系统性政策实施到位就会消散。利用二次调查数据（N = 49,674）和实验数据（六项研究；N = 4,629；均预先注册），我们记录到，人们对系统性政策在规划阶段（事前实施）的心理抗拒比对已实施阶段（事后实施）的心理抗拒更强。我们进一步证明，这种效应在各种干预背景下都能观察到，并深入探讨了其潜在的心理机制。具体而言，在系统性政策实施的事前与事后阶段，个人更多地关注转型带来的个人损失，而非预期的社会成果收益。基于这一观点，我们表明，系统性政策实施后抗拒情绪的下降是由个人损失的显著性介导和调节的，而对这类政策的初始抗拒则因社会收益的显著性而减轻。这些发现表明，公众对系统性政策的负面反应比以前认为的更短暂，这有助于政策制定者设计有效的干预措施。
