摘要：

CHAPTER 10 The Client-Processing Mentality The drill sergeant who insists that soldiers stand tall, keep their eyes straight, and march in precision achieves results without knowing the state of mind, predispositions, or previous military experience ofthe recruits. He is untroubled by the needs ofindividuals and is at ease with mass processing. Street-level bureaucrats are not so favored. Their work involves the bUilt-in contradiction that, while expected to exercise discretion in response to individuals and individual cases, in practice they must process people in terms of routines, stereotypes, and other mechanisms that facilitate work tasks. Workers defend these patterns psychologically. They regard their adaptations to the job not only as mechanisms to cope with resource limitations, but also as functional requirements of doing the job in the first place. Thus what to critics seem to be compromise solutions to resource constraints may, from the workers' perspectives, be desirable and necessary components of the work environment. To attack the routine is to appear to attack the structure . Clients who challenge bureaucratic routines are taught this lesson when administrators act to control them or respond defensively to questions about agency procedures. However, this does not entirely explain how workers cope or exhaust the types of psychological adaptations apparently required by these jobs. For one thing, it does not explain how street-level bureaucrats rationalize the discrepancy between service ideals and service provision. At least two additional perspectives on the psychology of street-level work must be considered in accounting for street-level bureaucrats' persistence and relative job satisfaction. The Client-Processing Mentality First, street-level bureaucrats modify their objectives to match better their ability to perform. Second, they mentally discount their clientele so as to reduce the tension resulting from their inability to deal with citizens according to ideal service models. In short, street-level bureaucrats develop conceptions of their jobs, and of clients, that reduce the strain between capabilities and goals, thereby making their jobs psychologically easier to manage. 1 This is particularly significant because street-level bureaucrats' views of their work, and of clients, are matters of great public concern. Street-level bureaucrats are often accused ofbeing biased against particular racial or ethnic groups or they are thought to be particularly cynical or unreliable in fulfilling obligations toward particular social groups. The proposal that workers' attitudes in large part are formed in response to their work setting contradicts some popular views. Popular wisdom often identifies the source of workers' attitudes toward clients and their jobs in prejudices acquired in upbringing and social background. Such perspectives lead to recommendations to hire better educated personnel or provide further education and training in public and human relations. All too often such perspectives fail to take account of the influence of street-level bureaucrats' work on their attitudes. It is apparent that streetlevel bureaucrats change their attitudes from the time they are recruited to the time when they begin to experience work problems. Differences in the class backgrounds ofrecruits tend to disappear in training and trainee socialization .2 Furthermore, there is evidence that educational background, which is closely related to class, is not an important predictor of the attitudes of workers who experience extreme job stresses. In this connection, sociologist Eliot Freidson has reviewed studies relating doctors' educational background to performance and concludes: "There is some very persuasive evidence that 'socialization' does not explain some important elements of professional performance half so well as does the organization of the immediate work environment.3 This is not to say that biases toward clients do not intrude in street-level work. However, focusing on the social backgrounds or experiences ofw

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