Acceso usuarios
Although publics� emotional responses have gained increasing importance in crisis communication research, reliable scales measuring crisis emotions specific to organizational crises are lacking. As the first study developing a multiple-item scale for measuring publics� crisis emotions, this study examines the conceptualization and operationalization of attribution-independent crisis emotions versus attribution-dependent crisis emotions by employing two survey data sets (N = 490) for scale development and testing. Results indicate that three types of emotions are likely to be felt by publics when exposed to organizational crises: (1) attribution-independent (AI) crisis emotions; (2) external-attribution-dependent (EAD) crisis emotions; and (3) internal-attribution-dependent (IAD) crisis emotions. The scale's reliability, factorial structure, and validity are further assessed. The findings confirm that the underlying processes of publics� emotions felt in crisis situations are different from those felt in non-crisis situations. Consequently, this scale provides a valid and reliable psychometric tool for researchers and crisis managers to measure publics� different emotions that are relevant to a crisis situation, as a result of crisis attribution appraisal.
