A NEW study by the University of Limerick (UL) found that emotive language is key to influencing public health behaviour.
The study looked into emotional messaging used by leaders during the Covid-19 pandemic and found 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 pandemic.
The report’s lead author, Dr Bernadette Naughton, said: “To influence citizens’ compliance with public health guidance and nationally imposed restrictions, political leaders needed to effectively motivate them through their public communications.”
Dr Naughton 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,” she said.
“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,” Dr Naughton explained.
The results of the research were replicated in both Ireland and the UK, showing consistency in the findings.
The research was co-authored with Deirdre O’Shea, Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at the Kemmy Business School in UL, and Dr Lisa Van der Werff and Professor Finian Buckley from Dublin City University.
