Building tolerance through experience: administrative engagement and burden tolerance across four countries

Research on burden tolerance suggests that people who previously faced burdens tend to be less accepting of administrative burdens more generally. However, the empirical focus has been on program-specific burdens and in particular social welfare programs. Thus, it remains an open question whether and how more general, everyday engagement with administrative tasks—and the emotional experiences involved—may influence burden tolerance. To better understand the relationship between administrative engagement, emotions, and burden tolerance, we survey residents in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. We find that frequent engagement with administrative tasks is positively associated with burden tolerance in all countries, except Denmark, and that residents with more positive emotional experiences tend to be more tolerant of burdens. While correlational, we interpret these findings as suggesting that engagement with everyday administrative tasks builds capability for managing administrative burdens, which in turn fosters burden tolerance.