本研究以實驗法，探討可能存在政府與民眾之間的各種認知落差。研究發現，情境認知落差與期望落差皆普遍存在，且這些落差顯著負向影響政府的聲譽，並顯著正向影響民眾的負面口碑。民眾會根據其情境認知產生相對應之期望，若官員只根據其情境認知而作出決策，當兩造情境認知產生明顯差異時，就會產生期望落差。本研究發現，情境認知落差的存在，是期望落差產生之根源，也是導致政府形象重挫的原因。

This study employed an experiment to explore various types of perceptiongaps that exist between the government and people during the natural disasterin Chile. The auther find that there existed conspicuous situation gap andexpectation gap. The auther also find that these gaps reverse the effects of thegovernment’s image repair efforts. Due to the fact that both the public reactionsand the governmental decisions are based on perceptions of situations,expectation gap is produced when the perceptions of the public and thegovernment diverge. We find that situation gap leads to expectation gap, whichexplains why the government’s image collapsed.