| Emotion plays an important role in marketing, particularly in understanding consumer behavior. Consumers experience a variety of emotions in response to marketing stimuli, whether through advertising, purchase situations, or product trial. Emotions can create interest, influence choices, affect purchase intentions, and stimulate decision making (Bagozzi, Gopinath, and Nyer 1997; O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy 2003). In fact, it may be difficult to identify a purchase situation where an emotional element is not present. Therefore, exploring the process of emotional response, factors that influence emotions, and how emotions affect subsequent thoughts and behaviors is important in understanding consumption behavior.; The majority of emotion research in marketing has focused on the effect of single valence emotional responses (i.e. only positive or only negative). However, recent studies across numerous domains indicate that many consumption experiences contain conflicting mixed emotions (i.e. ambivalence), where positive and negative emotions are elicited (e.g., advertising, Williams & Aaker 2002; consumption of experiential goods, Lau 2005; wedding planning, Otnes, Lowrey, & Shrum 1997; gift receipt, Ruth, Brunel, & Otnes 2002). The experience of mixed emotions might be a more accurate representation of emotion states in consumer behavior than single valence emotions (Richins 1997). Very little research has examined the experience of mixed emotions.; The current dissertation explores conditions under which mixed emotions exist. The effect of congruence, relevance, and control potential (i.e. revocability) on consumers' reactions and behavioral intentions regarding purchase decisions was examined. This research considers the effect of discrete and mixed emotional responses, and focuses on the future-directed emotions of optimism and worry. Results across three experiments indicate that when consumers were presented with both congruent and incongruent information, they experienced greater ambivalence than those presented with only congruent or incongruent information. Some evidence indicates that when conflicting information is important, consumers feel greater ambivalence. Revocability did not influence feelings of ambivalence prior to making a purchase decision. However, after a purchase decision, a revocable situation increased feelings of ambivalence. Feelings of ambivalence were also found to mediate the effect of information congruency on behavioral intentions in a mixed-emotional condition but not in either a positive- or negative-emotional condition. |
