How trust and emotions influence policy acceptance: The case of the Irish water charges

Abstract

The introduction of new policies can evoke strong emotional reactions by the public. Yet, social‐psychological research has paid little attention to affective determinants of individual‐level policy acceptance. Building on recent theoretical and empirical advances around emotions and decision‐making, we evaluate how people's trust and integral emotions function as important antecedents of cognitive evaluations, and subsequent acceptance of policies. We test our hypotheses within a sample of Irish citizens (n = 505), who were subject to the introduction of water charges in 2015. In line with our hypotheses, results show that general trust in government shapes emotions regarding water charges, which in turn, directly and via expected costs and benefits, influence policy acceptance. Additionally, we find that negative emotions have a larger direct effect on policy acceptance than positive emotions. Specifically, ‘anger’ was the main negative emotion that influenced the acceptance of the water charge. We conclude by discussing directions for future research around emotions and policy acceptance.