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Research carried out at 51��ɫ has revealed that the use of emotional language by government leaders is key to building trust and influencing public health behaviour.

A new study has delved into the emotional messaging used by leaders in the context of public health behaviours during the pandemic.

The research, which included Irish and UK field studies, clearly revealed that deliberate attempts to improve emotions in citizens created trust in crisis situations and had an influence on complying with public health measures.

The study, which has just been published in the American Psychological Association’s Emotion journal, found that managing citizens’ emotions during public briefings was crucial to trust and public health behaviour during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research provides insights into how leaders can build trust through the emotional language used in communicating with the public.

“To influence citizens’ compliance with public health guidance and nationally imposed restrictions, political leaders needed to effectively motivate them through their public communications,” explained Dr Bernadette Naughton, lead author of the research who recently completed her PhD at UL and is a Lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon.

“We argue that while negative emotions may have discouraged citizens from deviating from public health restrictions, other factors such as citizens’ trust in political leaders played a role as well.”

The study team, which also included Deirdre O’Shea, Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at the Kemmy Business School in UL and colleagues in DCU, investigated whether the perception of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies used by government leaders in ministerial briefings impacted citizens’ compliance with public health behaviours via either negative affect or perceived trustworthiness.

“IER refers to deliberate efforts to change or regulate the emotions of another person. In our everyday lives, we do this all the time,” explained Professor O’Shea.

“Across a series of studies, we examined whether interpersonal emotion regulation that aimed to improve or worsen citizens emotions were more effective in motivating citizen’s public health behaviours.”

The research showed that ministerial briefings did increase negative emotions when emotion-worsening strategies were used but this did not make citizens more likely to adhere to public health measures.

In fact, the study found that attempts to improve citizens emotions were far more beneficial in terms of citizen’s adherence to public health measures.

“Emotion-improving strategies worked, not because they decreased negative emotions but rather, because these strategies signalled that the leader could be trusted, and it was because of this trust that citizens were more willing to adhere to the public health measures,” explained Dr Naughton.

“Communication strategies used by a national leader that include efforts to manage citizens emotions are important for how trustworthy those leaders are perceived and for intentions to comply with requests from these same leaders.”

“Focusing on improving citizens emotions during crisis communications works, not because it decreases worry and anxiety regarding a crisis but rather, because these communication strategies signal that a leader can be trusted. It is because of this trust in the leader that citizens are then more willing to adhere to national crisis measures.”

The results of the research were replicated in both Ireland and the UK, showing remarkable consistency in the findings.

Trust was associated with higher intentions to adhere to the pandemic restrictions and while emotion-improving interpersonal emotion regulation strategies increased trust, emotion-worsening strategies decreased it.

“Although the research was conducted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has wide ranging implications for leaders globally as they communicate with citizens about national and international responses to global crises,” Professor O’Shea added.

The research was co-authored with Dr Lisa Van der Werff and Professor Finian Buckley from Dublin City University.

The study, ‘Influencing a Nation: How a Leader’s Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Influences Citizen Compliance via Trust and Emotions During a Global Pandemic’, by Bernadette Naughton, Deirdre O’Shea, Lisa van der Werff, Finian Buckley, has just been published by Emotion. .