Emotivational Self-Regulation

Previous research has focused on the importance of cognition in consumer self-regulation. In the present project, we demonstrate the motivational impact of emotion on self-regulatory goal adoption and adherence. We manipulate ‘emotivation’ by having consumers imagine how they would feel if they failed or succeeded at an important self-regulatory goal. In two studies, consumers who imagined experiencing positive emotions resulting from self-regulatory success were less inclined to adopt a self-regulatory goal, but persisted longer at goal-consistent behaviors than consumers who imagined experiencing negative emotions resulting from self-regulatory failure or control participants not imagining any emotional outcomes.

Citation:

Sabrina Bruyneel and Baba Shiv (2011) ,"Emotivational Self-Regulation", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 77.