Abstract

Three experiments investigate the emotions that arise from buying or not buying at an unintended purchase opportunity and how they color evaluations of affective advertising appeals that are viewed subsequently. We demonstrate that buying can cause happiness tempered with guilt, while not buying causes pride. Consistent with the felt affect, respondents who had bought at time 1 subsequently prefer happiness appeals to pride appeals, while those who had refrained prefer pride appeals. Drawing attention to the initial purchase decision and varying the affect by manipulating the discount both moderate this effect. These results contribute to the literatures on self-regulation, emotions, and persuasion.

View research
Download PDF

Citation

Johar, Gita, and Anirban Mukhupadhyay. "Tempted or Not: The Effect of Recent Purchase History on Responses to Affective Advertising." Journal of Consumer Research 33, no. 4 (March 2007): 445-53.

Each author name for a Columbia Business School faculty member is linked to a faculty research page, which lists additional publications by that faculty member.

Each topic is linked to an index of publications on that topic.