摘要：Within this paper; the relationship between citizens’ emotional reactions to political reporting and their judgment of trust in politicians is investigated. Drawing on appraisal theories of emotion; this paper seeks to answer the question whether affect predicts trust judgments and which emotion plays what role. Findings of two media effects studies; one in the context of the 2013 German televised debate and in the context of the 2014 EU elections; supported the assumption that (1) emotions play a role over and above cognitive evaluations of politicians and (2) effects of affective states differ depending on the appraisal of the emotion. Emotions that can be characterized by other-control appraisals (anger) and no-control appraisals (happiness) do affect trust in politicians; while emotions with situational control appraisal (fear; sadness) or self-control appraisal (pride) do not have an effect. The studies confirm that emotions play a crucial role for subsequent trust judgment over and above evaluations of politicians and also support the idea that valence-based approaches are too simplistic to explain the relationship of emotions and trust judgments.
关键词：Political trust; discrete emotions; media effects; appraisal
