Do emotions affect political trust judgments?

Our study explores the nature of political trust ratings in surveys. We provide novel empirical evidence that, in addition to informed and rational reasoning, emotional states play a role in trust evaluations. Leveraging a U.S. sample, we employ a novel smartphone survey methodology that captures real-time voice responses during the trust evaluation process. We then classify these responses using sentiment analysis and speech emotion recognition techniques. Our findings demonstrate a substantial presence of negative sentiment when respondents evaluate political trust. Moreover, the sentiment conveyed in these responses significantly impacts trust scores, with positive sentiment bolstering trust and negative sentiment leading to its decline. A more granular examination of emotions reveals limited variation with only one notable effect where respondents employing ‘happy’ language and paralinguistics exhibited higher trust scores.