New Influences: Emotions and Consumer Behavior

MAR 3503

April 5, 2012

What are emotions?

• “Episodic, relatively short-term, biologically-based patterns of perception, experience, physiology, action, and communication that occur in response to specific physical and social challenges and opportunities”

• I.e., feelings that prepare a person for action

Keltner & Gross, 1999

Emotions are…• Brief– On the order of a few seconds (facial expressions) to a

few minutes (emotional experiences)• Specific– They are directed at particular events, people,

products• Goal-oriented– They are motivation to achieve certain objectives

• Social– We usually only express emotions when others are

around

Components of emotions• Example: Happiness

– Cognitive response: to an event is seen as highly conducive to reaching an important goal or satisfying a need

– Vocal expression: Increases in pitch level, range, and variability as well as vocal intensity

– Physiological response: Heart beats faster, warmer skin temperature

Some basic emotions

Some basic emotions

• Paul Ekman posited six universal emotions– Happiness– Sadness– Anger– Disgust– Fear– Surprise

• These emotional states are irreducible– Many kinds of sadness, happiness, etc, but nothing

above or broader than them

Some basic emotions

Some basic emotions

What are the basic components?

What do emotions do?

What do emotions do?

• Feelings-as-information– People rely on their emotional reactions to

objects/events/people/etc when they make judgments

– Feelings exist to tell you what to do (goal-oriented)

– They work so well, we follow them even when they’re irrelevant

A study

• Imagine a researcher calls you up on a spring day:– He wants to know how satisfied you are with your

life– It’s either the first sunny, beautiful day that

spring, or it’s a cold, rainy day– He either first asks you about the weather, or he

just launches into the questions

• How happy are you with your life?

A study

Schwarz & Clore, 1983

Embodied emotion

Embodied emotion

Embodied emotion

Happiness

• Signals that a situation is good or benign– Goal is to keep it up!

Happiness is good, right?

• Happiness signals that things are okay– Without a need to try to fix things, you’re free to

look at the big picture– Happiness makes people more creative– Happy people take higher level construals of

events, products

Isen et al., 1987; Labroo & Patrick, 2009

But…

• Happiness can lead us to think very superficially, too– We saw in talking about the ELM that happy

people are more likely to rely on peripheral cues– They are also more likely to rely on heuristics

instead of careful thought– Happy people are more likely to use stereotypes

to judge people

Sadness

• Stems from loss and helplessness– Makes you want to change your circumstances to

feel better

Sadness is reverse happiness

• Sadness has the opposite effects of happiness:– People focus on details and uniquenesses of

products, people– They are less susceptible to weak persuasive

arguments– They construe things at a lower, more concrete

level– They are less creative

Sadness and economics

• Ps could choose between money or a prize– Half were given the prize

and could sell it back; the other half were asked whether they would prefer the item or some amount of cash

Lerner, Small, & Loewenstein, 2004

Retail therapy

• People sometimes shop to relieve sadness– It’s distracting, new things are pleasurable, etc

• We just saw that sadness increases people’s WTP—they set a higher buying price for products– This is consistent with compulsive shoppers

• They are more likely to be depressed, feel extreme negative moods before shopping than normal shoppers

• Their moods are more likely to change from negative to positive as they shop

– They seem to use shopping to manage undesirable feelings

Anger

• Defined by sense of certainty (who/what caused injustice or harm) and control (that you can resolve it)

Certainty and risk

• Angry people are more certain, and this makes them:– More risk seeking– More optimistic• They recognize that bad thing will happen, just that

they will prevail over them

– Think more superficially– Seek people/companies to blame for wrongs

Angry customers

• You don’t want your customers to get angry– Not only do they not return to your company, they

often try to get revenge• Negative WOM especially

• Anger and blame cycle on each other, so one bad experience can escalate in a customer’s mind

• Time is of the essence when customers are wronged– Apologies and compensation should happen as

quickly as possible, to reduce blame to the company

Disgust

• “A revulsion at the prospect of (oral) incorporation of an offensive substance”– Reaction to disgusting thing is to get rid of them,

push them away

• Usually related to animal products/byproducts

Disgust and economics

• Ps could choose between money or a prize– Half were given the prize

and could sell it back; the other half were asked whether they would prefer the item or some amount of cash

Lerner, Small, & Loewenstein, 2004

Disgust and contamination

• People believe that certain properties can be transferred between objects/people/etc– People don’t want to wear a washed sweater

worn by someone they don’t like– People are afraid to touch AIDS patients, even

though they know nonrisky contact is perfectly safe

– People don’t want to drink OJ that a sterilized cockroach was dipped in

Disgust and contamination

Fear

• Arises from uncertainty and a feeling of a lack of personal control over a situation– Prompts a goal to flee

Fear = bad?

• If fear is unpleasant, why do people enjoy horror movies? Or roller coasters?

• People can experience two emotions at once– Controlled fear can be exciting/pleasant

• Fear can be preparatory or instrumental– People who have avoidance goals are more likely

to prefer fear evoking situations

Fear appeals

• Fear appeals are effective, but not as strongly as they could be– How can we make them work better?

• Threat and efficacy are two main components of fear appeals– What is the bad thing? How can we fix it?

• Three responses:– Low threat: ignore it– High threat, low efficacy: deal with the fear– High threat, high efficacy: deal with the threat

Surprise

• A (sometimes pleasant, sometimes neutral) feeling of uncertainty

Surprise and word of mouth

• Surprised customers are more likely to spread word of mouth– Surprises are attention-grabbing– Surprise leads people to try to make sense of what

happened, which prompts people to talk with others for help

– Surprise amplifies preceding/subsequent emotions, so a positive experience will seem better, and a negative one worse

Summary

• Emotions are useful guides to experience• There are several basic emotions: happiness,

sadness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise• The physical aspect to emotions is important• The characteristics of each emotion lead to

predictable effects on thought and behavior

• Next time: Nonconscious processes and neurogimaging