Influencing A Nation: How a Leader's Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Influences Citizen Compliance via Trust and Emotions during a Global Pandemic

Description

During crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, it was necessary for political leaders to influence citizens to comply with public health measures and restrictions. These health measures (e.g., physical distancing, staying at home) had substantial negative effects on individuals lives and thus were sometimes met with defensive, non-cooperative responses. To influence citizens’ compliance with public health guidance and nationally imposed restrictions, political leaders needed to effectively motivate them through their public communications. We argue that whilst 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. We investigated whether the perception of the interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies used by government leaders in ministerial briefings impacted citizens’ compliance intentions via either negative affect or perceived trustworthiness. Across three studies based in Western Europe (Studies 1 & 2 survey, Study 3 experimental), we consistently found that a leader’s affect-improving IER strategies increased compliance…

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