As an important indicator to evaluate the citizen-government relationship, political trust is people’s confidence and expectation toward government and political system. In threatening conditions, political trust might change and it might have greater influence on subsequent political attitudes and behavior. Using large-scale social survey, questionnaire field study and experiments, the present study investigated the change and influence of political trust when people were in threatening conditions. Several conclusions could be made as follows: First, political trust toward government polarized in threatening conditions. Participants in threatening conditions, evaluated the central government (highly trusted) as more trustworthy while evaluated rural local government (lowly trusted) as less trustworthy than participants in control conditions. Second, political trust toward government could be improved by satisfying the specific emotional need of people in threatening conditions. Participants induced to feel anger were more likely to trust the government who implemented policies which reduced anger; while participants who were induced to feel fear were more likely to trust the government who implemented policies which reduced fear Third, perceived threat and induced threat were capable of increasing system defensive reactions among those who hold a high trust toward the current political system. The low trusting people, on the other hand, would not change their attitude or behavior or showed more cynical reactions in threatening conditions comparing to those in non-threatening situations
修改评论