Understanding Public Officials’ Attitudes Toward Public Participation: A Real-World Case Study

Salters, Emma (2025) Understanding Public Officials’ Attitudes Toward Public Participation: A Real-World Case Study. Master thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

The attitudes and perceptions of public officials regarding public participation are still understudied, even though these seem to be important predictors of the success of public participation projects. As it is also important to understand which factors influence public officials’ attitudes, this study examined the relationship between public officials’ trust in citizens and their attitudes – specifically acceptability and willingness – towards public participation. This study used a triangulation mixed-methods approach. A questionnaire, distributed amongst employees of the municipality of Groningen (N = 58) revealed that trust in citizens is a significant positive predictor of public officials’ acceptability of public participation and willingness to incorporate public participation initiatives. Additionally, the data from interviews (N = 9) showed that factors influencing public officials’ trust in citizens include how they view citizens and previous experiences. It also revealed some skepticism towards citizens’ capabilities. These results imply that there is a potential virtuous cycle between trust in citizens, acceptability, willingness and the success of public participation. Furthermore, providing public officials with training that highlights successful past public participation projects, might increase their trust in citizens, and in turn success of public participation. Limitations include a non-representative sample, volunteer bias for the interviews and the fact that willingness to incorporate was measured, and not actual behavior. Future research could focus on examining other factors that might influence public officials’ attitudes towards public participation, creating a more diverse sample, and implementing a longitudinal design.

Item Type:	Thesis (Master)
Supervisor name:	Eichholtzer, A.C.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	Environmental Psychology (EP) [Master Psychology]
Date Deposited:	25 Jul 2025 13:39
Last Modified:	25 Jul 2025 13:39
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5745

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