The distinct effects of gratitude and pride on donation choice and amount

Consumer donation behavior includes the decision to donate and the amount donated. However, most previous work in this area implies that findings apply to both dimensions of the donation decision. The current research adopts an evolutionary psychology perspective to examine the role of two positive emotions – pride and gratitude – on the decision to donate and how much is donated. Two experimental studies demonstrate that pride positively influences the decision to donate when the donation is recognized; however, pride does not influence the amount that is donated. In contrast, gratitude positively influences the decision to donate and the amount donated via an affiliation motive, regardless whether the donation is recognized. This research contributes to the literature of prosocial behavior in the form of donating, by clarifying the role of positive emotions on each dimension of donation behavior.     

Feelings that Make a Difference: How Guilt and Pride Convince Consumers of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Consumption Choices

A significant body of research concludes that stable beliefs of perceived consumer effectiveness lead to sustainable consumption choices. Consumers who believe that their decisions can significantly affect environmental and social issues are more likely to behave sustainably. Little is known, however, about how perceived consumer effectiveness can be increased. We find that feelings of guilt and pride, activated by a single consumption episode, can regulate sustainable consumption by affecting consumers’ general perception of effectiveness. This paper demonstrates the impact that guilt and pride have on perceived consumer effectiveness and shows how this effect rests on the ability of these emotions to influence perceptions of agency. After experiencing guilt or pride, consumers see themselves as the cause of relevant sustainability outcomes. The process of causal attribution associated with these emotions influences consumers’ use of neutralization techniques. Through the reduction in consumers’ ability to neutralize their sense of personal responsibility, guilt and pride positively influence perceived consumer effectiveness. The inability to rationalize-away their personal responsibility, persuades consumers that they affect sustainability outcomes through their decisions. The research advances our understanding of sustainable consumption and identifies a new avenue for the regulation of individual consumer behavior that has significant implications for the development of sustainable marketing initiatives.     

Exploring Postconsumption Guilt and Pride in the Context of Sustainability

This research explores the feelings of guilt and pride experienced by consumers after a purchase decision that involves issues of environmental and social sustainability. Through a multi‐method design, the authors examine key dimensions that influence the process of emotional appraisal, illustrate the characteristics of appraisals of guilt/pride and investigate the consequences that emotions have on future choices. In this exploratory research, when a purchase decision includes an ethical dilemma, consumers were found to express guilt or pride even when the purchase is not intentional, i.e. forced by circumstances. Moreover, the study explores how emotions experienced after decisions may have a positive influence on the future purchase of sustainable alternatives. Finally, the paper proposes a new model that describes the process of emotional appraisal and reports on a number of dimensions that were found to lead to guilt and pride. The insights presented extend knowledge of two key consumer emotions and present important implications for practitioners promoting ethical products.     

How anticipated pride and guilt influence green consumption in the Middle East: The moderating role of environmental consciousness

This research empirically tests the combined effect of anticipated pride, anticipated guilt, and environmental consciousness in parallel to the Theory of Planned Behavior's main components on green purchase intention. For the first time, it also explores the interaction of environmental consciousness, anticipated pride, anticipated guilt, and attitude, respectively, on green purchase intention. Analysis of 304 responses collected from consumers in the United Arab Emirates revealed that environmental consciousness, attitude towards green products, anticipated pride, and anticipated guilt positively influence the intention to purchase green products, but not perceived behavioral control and subjective norms. Interestingly, anticipated pride increases green purchase intention under low level of environmental consciousness, while anticipated guilt decreases purchase intention. In contrast, anticipated guilt positively influences green purchase intention under high environmental consciousness, while anticipated pride does not. This study extends current knowledge related to green purchase behavior and provides a nuanced understanding of the influence of anticipated emotions. It also provides practical implications for marketers in the Middle East to formulate effective strategies to stimulate green products consumption.     

New insights into emotion valence and loyalty intentions in relational exchanges

This research examines how emotion valence and future intentions arising from relational exchanges with a service firm depend on a consumer's level of goal attainment and locus of causality (firm vs. self) of relational outcomes. Drawing on the theories of goal‐directed behavior and agency of causation, this study hypothesizes that levels of goal attainment and locus of causality influence the generation of positive emotions (gratitude), negative emotions (grudge and guilt), relational mediators (trust and commitment), and subsequent future intentions to remain loyal to the firm. Based on a controlled experiment with 284 subjects in a consumer‐determined relationship setting, the research finds that emotion valence and future loyalty intentions are contingent upon the fulfillment of relational objectives of individual consumers and the agency of causation for the outcome of the relational exchanges. In doing so, this study delineates the conditioning mechanism that directs how emotion valence influences behavioral intentions. The study contributes to the consumer behavior and services marketing literatures on consumption‐based emotions and has significant practice implications for relational behaviors.     

Pride in my past: Influencing sustainable choices through behavioral recall

Emotional appraisal research has demonstrated that recalling a past behavior and its associated emotions can influence future behavior. However, how such recalled emotions shape sustainable consumer choice has not been examined. This study examines the role of recalled pride and guilt in shaping sustainable purchase intentions and the mediating role of anticipated pride and guilt. A conceptual model is proposed for motivating sustainable purchase intentions through the emotions associated with the behavioral recall. The model is applied in two experiments with online consumers examining purchase intentions of low carbon cars. Recalling feelings of pride associated with a past sustainability‐related behavior increases sustainable purchase intention, as compared with a neutral recall. This effect occurs through the mediation of both anticipated pride at the prospect of a sustainable behavior choice and anticipated guilt if the future choice is not sustainable. Similar hypotheses relating to recalled guilt at past unsustainable behavior were not supported. The study contributes to research on sustainable consumption, revealing an emotional route by which past behavior can influence future behavior. It also adds to emotional appraisal research by showing the role of specific self‐conscious emotions in forming this route, as prior research has focused more broadly on emotional valence.     

Emotional prototypes,emotional memory usages,and customer satisfaction

In this study, we investigated the positive and negative emotion concepts in the prototype perspective and then tested them on customer satisfaction. By studying 612 customers in luxury restaurants, we found that two levels of customer emotions (i.e. positive and negative emotions) as a super-ordinate level, 4 positive emotions (i.e. contentment, happiness, love, and pride) and 5 negative emotions (i.e. anger, fear, sadness, shame, and disgust) as a basic level, and 49 specific emotions as a subordinate level are significantly related to customer satisfaction. We also examined the moderating role of emotional memory (EM) usage in the relationship between consumers’ emotions and their satisfaction. We found that product (food and beverage)-related EM strengthens and service-related EM usage weakens the relationship between customers’ negative emotions and their satisfaction. Interestingly, we found that positive and negative emotions are significantly related to customer satisfaction regardless of experience and store-related EM usage.     

I Have Paid Less Than You! The Emotional and Behavioral Consequences of Advantaged Price Inequality

This study examines the emotion blends and the subsequent customer reactions that occur in advantaged price inequality situations, that is, when consumers learn that retailers charged them a lower price than what the same retailers charged another customer. Drawing on the appraisal theories of emotion and on social comparison theory, an experiment (n = 272) and a field study (n = 261) are conducted. The results reveal that in advantaged price inequality situations, customers experience a host of positive and negative emotions depending on two factors: the quality of relationship that the customer has with a disadvantaged other customer (neutral, positive, or negative) and the attribution of agency for the price advantage (situational attribution to competition, external attribution to store policies, or internal attribution to customer abilities). Positive emotions include happiness, gratitude, pride, and malicious joy; while negative emotions include pity, outrage, and guilt. These emotions are shown to mediate the occurrence of customer reactions (i.e., customer satisfaction, loyalty, WOM referral, and WOM activity). The article concludes with theoretical implications and recommendations for retail practitioners on how to use dynamic pricing.     

The Impact of Moral Emotions on Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns: A Cross-Cultural Examination

This research was focused on investigating why some consumers might support cause-related marketing campaigns for reasons other than personal benefit by examining the influence of moral emotions and cultural orientation. The authors investigated the extent to which moral emotions operate differently across a cultural variable (US versus Korea) and an individual difference variable (self-construal). A survey method was utilised. Data were collected from a convenience sample of US (n = 180) and Korean (n = 191) undergraduates. Moral emotions significantly influenced purchase intention for a social-cause product. The influence of an ego-focused moral emotion (i.e., pride) on purchase intention was greater for US than Korean participants. The influence of another-focused moral emotion (i.e., guilt) on purchase intention was greater for high-interdependent participants than for low-interdependent participants. The findings of this research provide important and relevant implications to marketers and policy makers in developing persuasive messages and customer relationship programmes.     

Variety-seeking as an emotional coping strategy for chronically indecisive consumers

The present research provides evidence that variety-seeking is a generalized emotional coping strategy for chronically indecisive consumers. Recent research reveals that (1) chronic indecisiveness is associated with increased variety-seeking behavior and (2) chronically indecisive consumers (vs. not) feel more positive after choosing a mix of products. The present research demonstrates that chronically indecisive consumers’ increased tendency to seek variety can be further inflated by inducing them to experience negative emotion unrelated to the choice task. This finding is directly at odds with past research that has repeatedly found an increasing effect of positive emotion on variety-seeking behavior. The present research shows that this effect does not hold for chronically indecisive consumers, who variety-seek even more when made to feel negative.     

Brand hate and non-repurchase intention: A service context perspective in a cross-channel setting

The purpose of this study is to investigate the brand hate phenomenon for service products in a cross-channel setting (offline/online environment). To reach this objective, structural equation modeling was employed on a sample of 265 consumers. Findings reveal that brand hate positively influences offline negative word-of-mouth (NWOM), online complaining, and non-repurchase intention. Furthermore, while offline NWOM has a positive effect on non-repurchase intention, online complaining has a negative one. Finally, a mediated path was identified, which starts from brand hate and ends with non-repurchase intention through online complaining and offline NWOM. The study provides implications for firms’ marketers and practitioners.     

Using Affect–Expectations Theory to Explain the Direction of the Impacts of Experiential Emotions on Satisfaction

Traditional research in consumer psychology considers valence (negative vs. positive) to be the primary dimension of an emotion. The direction of the impact an emotion has on consumer satisfaction is considered to be dictated by its valence. Drawing on the theory of affective expectations, in the case of experiential emotions, an alternative conceptualization is proposed in which this direction is seen as being conditional on emotional expectations associated with the consumption experience. When pertaining to consumers’ expectations relative to an anticipated experience, negative emotions can be the output benefit of consumption and contribute positively to satisfaction. Conversely, positive emotions that run against expectations can be a negative output and contribute negatively to satisfaction. On the basis of a qualitative study and a quantitative survey of movie consumption in theaters, it is established that positive (joy) as well as negative (sadness and fear) experiential emotions are positively associated with film expectations, whereas a positive emotion (calmness) runs against these expectations. Contrary to what traditional research predicts, not only joy but also sadness and fear demonstrate positive impacts on satisfaction whereas calmness, a positive emotion, has a negative impact.     

Materialism and life satisfaction: The moderating roles of alexithymia and product retention tendency

This research examines how alexithymia and product retention tendency affect the relationship between materialism and life satisfaction. Extant research has established that materialism has a negative effect on personal well‐being and that consumer culture and marketing facilitates this effect by encouraging consumers to focus on material pursuits to satisfy extrinsic goals. However, previous research has not explored how emotional personality traits and lifestyle values influence this “dark side” of materialism. Alexithymia is an emotional personality trait that inhibits an individual's ability to identify, describe and regulate emotions. Results from survey data show that alexithymia moderates the effect of materialism on life satisfaction, such that the effect is negative for individuals without alexithymia, but positive for individuals with alexithymia. Moreover, product retention tendency attenuates the negative effect of materialism for individuals without alexithymia, but strengthens the positive effect of materialism for individuals with alexithymia. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

On the effectiveness of ego- and other-focused ad-evoked emotions

Emotional advertising is generally believed to be persuasive. However, not all emotional advertising is equally effective. Previous research has illustrated the importance of the pleasure dimension of emotions in the sense that positive emotions usually induce more positive attitudes than negative emotions. This paper deals with another dimension of emotions – the ego-other-focus dimension of emotions – referring to the degree to which these emotions make people see themselves as independent from or interdependent with others in a specific situation. Our findings indicate that, for a privately consumed product, ads evoking an egofocused emotion score better than ads evoking an other-focused emotion, whereas the reverse is true for a publicly consumed product. This match between product and emotion does not matter for introverts, but is important for extravert people. As such, we show that not only the pleasure dimension, but also the ego-other-focus dimension of emotions determines the effectiveness of emotional advertising.     

Cultural variation in response to strategic emotions in negotiations

This research examined how culture influences the effectiveness of the strategic displays of emotions in negotiations. We predicted that in cross-cultural negotiation settings, East Asian negotiators who highly regarded cultural values that are consistent with communicating respect as humility and deference would be more likely to accept an offer from an opposing party who displayed positive as opposed to negative emotion. With a sample of East Asian MBA students, the results of Study 1 confirmed this prediction. Study 2 results replicated this finding with a sample of Hong Kong executive managers and also found they were less likely to accept an offer from a negotiator displaying negative emotion than Israeli executive managers who did not hold humility and deference in such high regard. Implications for strategic display of emotions in cross-cultural settings are discussed.     

Managing negative word-of-mouth: an exploratory study

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates how executive-level and functional managers in three large organisations understand and respond to negative word-of-mouth (NWOM). The findings, based principally on analysis of 54 interviews over 3 years, show that organisations devote far more resources to the management of NWOM than they do to the promotion of positive word-of-mouth. Marketing and other customer-facing work groups play varied roles in organisational response to NWOM, which often involves complaints management and crisis management. We find that senior management, marketing, sales, advertising, PR and contact-centre staff all have different fears about NWOM and therefore respond to it in various ways. Our recommendations for better management of NWOM stress three points – leadership, organisational readiness and public relations management.     

Consumers between supermarket shelves: The influence of inter-personal distance on consumer behavior

Recent research underlines the important influence on consumer behavior of the mere presence of consumers on other consumers in retail businesses. While these results mainly relate to overall behavior, it is largely unknown how consumers behave in stores and how they react to customers present around them. This study examines the impact of an encounter between two consumers, directly in front of the same shelf row, on diverse consumer behavior. By means of two pilot studies we gained initial insights into the mutual influence. An image-based scenario study shows that the proximal distance is important for consumers' emotional state. In addition, the results indicate that these triggered negative and positive emotions mediate the effects of the distance on shopping satisfaction, aversive behavioral tendencies, willingness to buy, and number of alternatives considered.     

The balancing act: How do moral norms and anticipated pride drive food waste/reduction behaviour?

Food waste is a serious problem that impacts the environment and sustainability by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from landfills. Food waste also represents a social challenge because it raises serious concerns about food security. While acknowledging that households waste a great deal of food because they lack a proper routine for reusing leftovers and purchase more food than required, few studies have extensively examined the drivers of leftover reuse and over-ordering. We address this gap using the stimulus-organism-response paradigm. Moral norms and anticipated pride are conceptualised as stimuli that impact the organismic state of intentions against food waste and response in the form of leftover reuse routines and over-purchasing of food. Data collected from 443 individuals residing in the United States confirm the positive association of norms and pride with intentions. Statistical analyses also reveal a positive association between intentions and leftover reuse routines and a negative association between intentions and over-purchasing of food. The results further demonstrate the mediation effect of intentions on the association of moral norms and anticipated pride with both response variables; in addition, we find that household income exerts a positive moderation effect on the association of norms and pride with intentions and a negative moderation effect on the association of anticipated pride with over-purchasing of food. Researchers, organisations and policymakers can draw upon these findings to motivate future research, propose effective strategies and enact favourable policies to promote sustainability and reduce food-related waste at the household level.     

Negative emotions,value and relationships: Differences between women and men

Service experiences are characterized by emotions that help shape the value in use received by the customer. Negative emotion plays an important role in all of consumer psychology and all too often consumers experience some degree of negative emotion during a consumption experience. This research sheds light on how these negative shopping emotions experienced by men and women in a typical shopping environment affect value and relationships in the form of shopper behavior, commitment and share of wallet. A theoretical process is explained and modeled with a sample of mall shoppers. Results overall suggest that negative emotions affect the shopping experience more for women than for men in terms of perceived value and loyalty. In contrast, the behavior–commitment relationship is stronger for men.     

Consumer advocacy: Examining the feeling and doing following a failed service encounter

Dissatisfactory service experiences and consumer complaints following such experiences are everyday occurrences. Prior research has not only examined the emotions experienced because of failed service encounters but also has explored the resultant behaviours towards the service provider and the service. However, prior research does not distinguish between negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) motivated by marketplace-helping behaviour such as consumer advocacy and NWOM as venting triggered by emotions such as anger and frustration. The current study examines the direct relationship between regret and disappointment and consumer advocacy. Unlike past studies, the current study explores two types of customer dissatisfaction: agent based and outcome based. Study 1 uses a vignette methodology, and Study 2 uses experience sampling in which respondents provide personal episodes of failed service encounters. In contrast with a previous proposition, we find that regret has a significant negative relationship with consumer advocacy. Disappointment based on external events demonstrates a significant positive relationship, whereas disappointment caused by another person has a weaker relationship with consumer advocacy.