What’S Wrong With Having Too Much Fun?: the Moderating Role of Arousal in the Influence of Positive Mood on Self-Control

This paper investigates the moderating role of arousal in the impact of positive mood on consumer self-control. Positive mood facilitates self-control in terms of 1) the choice between two snack items, one of which is more desirable, sinful, tempting, and harder to resist (M&M’s) than the other (grapes) and 2) the monitoring of consumption when the sinful option is chosen. The effect however is diminished when positive mood is accompanied by elevated arousal. The cognitive depletion that accompanies elevated arousal is demonstrated to be the process mechanism underlying the effects.

Citation:

Alexander (Sasha) Fedorikhin and Vanessa Patrick (2008) ,"What’S Wrong With Having Too Much Fun?: the Moderating Role of Arousal in the Influence of Positive Mood on Self-Control", in LA - Latin American Advances in Consumer Research Volume 2, eds. Claudia R. Acevedo, Jose Mauro C. Hernandez, and Tina M. Lowrey, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 163-163.