Public administration research has recently paid increasing attention to public employees' social categorization of citizens and the consequences thereof for administrative decision-making. We advance this line of scholarship by theorizing the concept of implicit citizenship theories (ICTs) and elaborating it in four sequential empirical studies. ICTs are implicit assumptions about citizens' typical or ideal characteristics that emerge freely and associatively in the minds of public employees and guide cognitive categorization. We investigate the content and structure of these ICTs and extract a taxonomy of six distinctive, yet interrelated, prototypes of citizens that public employees bring to their jobs. As implicit theories influence attitudes and behaviors, ICTs are relevant to the quality of public services delivered to citizens. This is particularly evident where negative prototypes give rise to unequal treatment. Practical interventions to change those prototypes might target their individual beholders or the social context that makes ICTs accessible.

中文翻译：

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从社会分类到隐性公民理论：推进国家与公民互动的社会认知基础


近年来，公共行政研究越来越关注公职人员对公民的社会分类及其对行政决策的影响。我们通过对隐性公民理论（ICT）的概念进行理论化并在四项连续的实证研究中对其进行详细阐述来推进这一学术研究。信息通信技术是对公民典型或理想特征的隐含假设，这些假设自由地、联想性地出现在公共雇员的头脑中，并指导认知分类。我们研究了这些信息通信技术的内容和结构，并提取了公职人员在工作中带来的六种独特但又相互关联的公民原型的分类。由于隐性理论影响态度和行为，信息通信技术与向公民提供的公共服务的质量相关。当负面原型导致不平等待遇时，这一点尤其明显。改变这些原型的实际干预措施可能会针对其个人观察者或使信息通信技术易于使用的社会背景。