Abstract: Public expectations are a key factor affecting the volatility of housing market as well as the effectiveness of regulatory policies. Studying the formation and influencing factors of public expectations is significant for government to effectively manage public expectations and achieve the goal of "stabilizing expectations". Based on the theory of social learning, we introduce the concept of "cognition" and "emotion" in psychology and behavioral science to clarify the mechanism of perceived objective information, observing learning and prior beliefs on public housing price expectations. Moreover, we explore the intermediate conduction path of agents' cognition and subject emotion, and analyzes the formation mechanism of public housing price expectations from both theoretical and empirical perspective. The empirical results show that perceived objective information, observing learning and prior beliefs are positively related to agent's cognition. There is a negative correlation between prior belief and agent's emotion. The agent's cognition is positively associated with housing price appreciation expectation, while their emotion is negatively correlated with housing price appreciation expectation. The government should maintain the transparency and coherence of policies and scientifically release the real information of housing market to reasonably guide the formation of public rational expectations.

Key words: housing price, public expectations, social learning