The Impact of Matching Between Emotion Types and Product Offerings on Evaluations

Drawing on the feeling-as-information mechanism, this research examines the differential informational role of two positive discrete emotions, beyond valence, for consumer judgments. Proposing emotion congruency bias effects, this research suggests that a match between felt emotion and the emotional appeal of a product would generate more favorable evaluations toward the product relative to a mismatch. The results of two studies suggest that travel products with adventurous (versus serene) offerings are more favorably evaluated under excitement than under serenity. Furthermore, this research shows that such an enhanced evaluation under a match vs. mismatch happens via heightened estimates of the occurrence of product offerings.

Citation:

Kiwan Park, Hakkyun Kim, and Norbert Schwarz (2009) ,"The Impact of Matching Between Emotion Types and Product Offerings on Evaluations", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 672-673.