Consumer Decision-making Study Based On Social Identity And Emotion Regulation

Emotion is closely related to our life. It is one of the constituent elements of human existence, which affects our choices and decisions. Consumers not only experience all kinds of emotion, but also regulate emotion. Research on consumer emotion not only enrich the theories of consumption, but also can be used to guide companies to make marketing decisions and help them develop more suitable marketing strategies. On the other hand, with the study of social identity continuously enriching, researchers have begun to focus on close relations between social identity and consumer behavior. In reality, consumers' emotion and social identity are closely related to consumption decision-making. Therefore, the research of the interactions among social identity, emotion regulation and consumption decision-making is of immense significance in both theories and practices.Through literature review, the probable links have been found between a set of emotion and different social identities. A set of emotion can help improve the embodiment of the specific social identity. Individuals hava motivations to regulate emotion to support their active social identities, which realizes the utilitarian objectives of emotion regulation. Discrete emotions associated with the specific identity are called emotion profile. The individual identity activates the relative emotion profile, which makes appropriate emotional experiences consistent with that active identity. If emotion profile does exist, the consistency (inconsistency) between the experiencing emotions and active emotion profiles has significant impact on a variety of consumer outcomes.However, there is still some deficiency in current research. Domestic research lacks of empirical data, and rarely involves the research of relationship among social identity, emotion regulation and consumer decision-making; Secondly, there is few research involving the impact of reinforcement and repairment of social identities on active emotion profiles and subsequent chain reactions. Thirdly, previous studies have focused on the associations from specific identities to emotions, not involving the links from specific emotions to identities. It is a worthwhile research direction that whether a certain kind of emotional experience will help enhance the identity, and thus have impact on consumer behavior.In view of this, this dissertation focuses on the chain reactions of "social identity-emotion profile-emotional experience-strengthening or weakening of social identity-emotional experience change-changes in consumer decision-making". This dissertation discusses the influences of social identity on consumers'emotion regulation through an intermediate variable -emotion profile, further influences on consumer decision-making, and the chain reactions triggered by reinforcement of social identity which is caused by the experiencing emotions after buying behavior. Finally, the implications on marketing decisions are drawned.This dissertation examines five hypotheses and tests them by several experiments. First, the social identity activates specific emotion profile. Second, emotion profile will keep desirable emotions consistent with the identity. Third, if emotion profile exists, the degree of consisitency or inconsistency between the experiencing emotions and the active profile will have a significant effect on a variety of consumer outcomes. Fourth, the consistency between experiencing emotions and the active emotion profile will enhance the significance of social identities. Fifth, the enhancement of the consistency between experiencing emotions and the social identity through strengthening social identity will have a significant effect on consumer decision-making results.The results of these studied showed that there was indeed the specific emotion profile associated with a specific identity and that he or she was more likely to be persuaded by advertising messages when the consumer was in communication with a tone that is consistent with the emotion profile. Marketing communication can achieve identity positioning through emotional advertising. Due to the emotional dissonance caused by experiencing different emotions inconsistent with the identity, consumers have motives to regulate their emotions, to achieve or improve the consistency between the experiencing emotions and the emotion profile. Consumers will have a more positive attitude towards such products, and will be more likely to consume more of these products than products that prevent them from reaching their emotional regulation goals, if they are faced with products that help them achieve their emotion regulation goals. Therefore, the interaction between the identity and its associated emotion profile leads to the differences in selection, persuasion, and product preferences. Finally, the individual uses consumption to strategically adjust their emotional experiences, thereby enhance the emotions in line with the identity and weaken the inconsistent emotions. These preferences and emotional adjustment goals are functional, the individual who is experiencing the emotions consistent with the identity will have a better performance than the individual who is experiencing the emotions inconsistent with the identity in the process of taking identity-related tasks, which means that the emotion profile will strengthen the enactment of the identity.