Cross-Cultural Simulation of Citizen Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape Using LLM Agents

Wanchun Ni, Jiugeng Sun, Yixian Liu, Mennatallah El-Assady

Keywords: LLM Simulation, LLM-Agents, Social Computing, Social Simulation, LLM Evaluation

Abstract: Improving policymaking is a central concern in public administration. Prior human subject studies reveal substantial cross-cultural differences in citizens' emotional responses to red tape during policy implementation. While LLM agents offer opportunities to simulate human-like responses and reduce experimental costs, their ability to generate culturally appropriate emotional responses to red tape remains unverified. To address this gap, we propose an evaluation framework for assessing LLMs' emotional responses to red tape across diverse cultural contexts. Our results show that all models exhibit limited alignment with human emotional responses, with notably weaker performance in Eastern cultures. Cultural prompting strategies prove largely ineffective in improving alignment. We further introduce RAMO, an interactive interface for simulating citizens' emotional responses to red tape and collecting human data for model improvement. The interface is publicly available at https://ramo-chi.ivia.ch.

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Submission Number: 1