An important determinant of the reliance on feelings in judgment is their perceived diagnosticity. This diagnosticity has long been thought to be a function of two primary factors: how representative are the feelings of the target to be judged, and how relevant are feelings for the judgment to be made. Our research uncovers a third important factor: the person’s trust in his or her feelings, which is defined as the degree to which this person believes that his or her feelings generally point toward the “right” answer in judgments and decisions. Results from six experiments show that compared to lower trust in feelings, higher momentary trust in feelings: (a) increases the reliance on feelings as a judgment criterion across situations; (b) amplifies the influence of ad-induced feelings in persuasion; and (c) magnifies a well-known affective bias in risky choice. We also find that (d) trust in feelings moderates the reliance on feelings in judgment only when sufficient processing resources are available; moreover (e) while a high perceived relevance of feelings for a particular judgment appears to dominate a low personal trust in feelings in general, a high trust in feelings in general can offset a low perceived relevance of feelings for a particular judgment. A final study shows that (f) experimental manipulations of trust in feelings can be used as a method to clarify the role of feelings in situations where this role is ambiguous such as in the classic ultimatum game.
Many companies facing product recall situations try to reduce their blame by blaming their suppliers for the malfunction of their products. Without additional information, consumers struggle to assess the credibility of these ambiguous statements. This article demonstrates that consumers’ prior beliefs about a company perceived honesty is a key factor in judging the company in a time of crisis. Furthermore consumers feeling right (or wrong) about their prior beliefs is found to vary the reliance on these beliefs, influencing the valence of consumers reactions to the crisis. Using previous findings about honesty and type of organization (for-profit vs. not-for-profit), two studies show that consumers’ reactions to a crisis will be more positive when the company is perceived to be more honest (not-for-profit) as compared to less (for-profit) and that these reactions will interact with how right or how wrong these prior beliefs about a company’s honesty feel to the consumers.
Preferences are influenced by consummatory aspects of a product that elicit intrinsic attitudes (“I like snacks”) as well as by nonconsummatory attributes (“this snack is reasonably priced”). We propose that background music can augment the effect of intrinsic attitudes on preferences, thus polarizing consumers’ expressed preferences. We tested this preference-polarization effect of music in four experiments. When exposed to background music, participants were more likely to rent movies based on their intrinsic attitudes toward movie genres (experiment 1), and purchase snacks based on their intrinsic attitudes toward snacks rather than the prices of the snacks (experiments 2 and 3). Background music changed participants’ preference for complex stimuli that had a combination of consummatory and nonconsummatory elements but not for simple stimuli that had only one type of element (experiment 4). This effect manifested for a range of music types (fast/slow, concordant/discordant) and cannot be sufficiently explained by cognitive load.
This research documents an intriguing empirical phenomenon whereby states of relaxation increase the monetary valuation of products. This phenomenon is demonstrated in six experiments involving two different methods of inducing relaxation, a large number of products of different types, and various methods of assessing monetary valuation. In all six experiments participants who were put into a relaxed affective state reported higher monetary valuations than participants who were put into an equally pleasant but less relaxed state. This effect seems to be caused by differences in relaxed and non-relaxed individuals’ mental construals of the value of the products. Specifically, compared to less-relaxed individuals, relaxed individuals seem to represent the value of products at a higher level of abstraction, which increases their perceptions of these products’ value. The phenomenon appears to reflect an inflation of value by relaxed individuals rather than a deflation of value by less-relaxed individuals.
We posit that compared to the cognitive system, the affective system of judgment and decision making is more likely to be engaged in the present. Specifically, we hypothesize that even if their accessibility is held constant, affective feelings may be weighted more heavily in consumer judgments and decisions set in the present than in equivalent judgments and decisions set in the future or in the past. Consistent with this proposition, results from six experiments show that (a) compared to a more distant future, a nearer future increases consumers’ relative preferences for options that are superior in terms of integral affect over options that are cognitively superior; (b) compared to a more distant future, a nearer future also increases the influence of incidental moods on consumers’ evaluation; (c) consumers find that current feelings are more “relevant” for decisions set in a nearer future than for decisions set in a more distant future; and (d) compared to a more distant past, a more recent past also increases the influence of incidental moods on consumers’ evaluations.
Results from eight studies reveal an intriguing phenomenon: Individuals who have higher trust in their feelings can predict the outcomes of future events better than individuals with lower trust in their feelings, whether trust in feelings is manipulated experimentally or simply measured. This emotional oracle effect was found across a variety of predictions, including (a) the 2008 U.S. Democratic presidential nominee, (b) the box-office success of different movies, (c) the winner of American Idol, (d) movements of the Dow Jones Index, (e) the winner of a football championship game, and even (f) the weather. It appears that it is mostly high trust in feelings that improves prediction accuracy rather than low trust in feelings that impairs it. However, the emotional oracle effect is obtained only among individuals who possess sufficient background knowledge about the prediction domain, and it dissipates when the prediction criterion becomes inherently unpredictable. We speculate that the emotional oracle effect arises because trusting one’s feelings encourages access to a “privileged window” into the vast amount of predictive information that people learn, often unconsciously, about their environment.
Consumers constantly make product decisions involving temporal and/or monetary considerations. This work examines the stability of consumer evaluations of these two fundamental economic resources in product choice. Specifically, we propose that the degree of preference consistency depends on whether the focal resource is time or money. Prior research suggests two competing hypotheses: while some research demonstrates that the value of time is more ambiguous than the value of money, implying less consistency in time- than in money-based product evaluations, others suggest that monetary evaluations lack emotional tags and are more prone to cognitive noise, implying less consistency in money-based product evaluations. We test these competing predictions in five experiments. Our results demonstrate that, in general, money-based product evaluations generate less consistency than time-based evaluations, supporting the emotion-based explanation.
Our research examines how regulatory fit can influence the effectiveness of persuasion through two separate mechanisms: a “feeling right” as “feeling good” mechanism where one’s positive feeling is transferred directly to the target, similar to the “feelings as information” heuristic; and a “feeling right” as “feeling confident” mechanism where one’s evaluative reactions during the persuasion process are intensified. We propose that the importance of an attitude-related issue in a persuasion message is one key factor that determines when each mechanism occurs. We hypothesize that under high importance fit will intensify evaluative reactions, making a message advocating a positive reaction to a target more effective by intensifying positive reactions and making a message advocating a negative reaction to a target more effective by intensifying negative reactions. We also hypothesize that under low importance fit will generally increase the positivity of feelings toward the target, making a message advocating a positive reaction to a target more effective by increasing positivity but making a message advocating a negative reaction to a target less effective by decreasing negativity. These hypotheses are supported across five studies and two message persuasion domains. Level of importance is shown to produce different regulatory fit effects.
We propose that affective evaluations are inherently more ordinal, compared to cognitive, computational evaluation. That is, affective evaluations are inherently more comparative and focus more on the relative ranking of the various alternatives than on their assessment in absolute terms. Support for this proposition was found across seven studies using different operationalizations of affective versus cognitive evaluations and different tests of the notion that affective evaluations are more ordinal. We found (a) an intuitive preference for ranking (as opposed to rating) when making affective evaluations (as opposed to cognitive evaluations) (Study 1), (b) a greater perceived fit of ranking (vs. rating) when making affective evaluations (Studies 2 & 3); (c) more process evidence of ordinal mental operations when making affective evaluations (Studies 4 & 5); and (d) more distributive scale use when making affective evaluations (Studies 6 & 7). Collectively, these results converge in uncovering a consistent pattern of greater ordinality under affective evaluations.
Does sunlight exposure increase risk taking? Prior research has examined human mood and behavior on sunny versus cloudy days. Of particular relevance, sunny days have been associated with higher stock market returns than cloudy days (Hirshleifer and Shumway 2003, Saunders 1993). Our current research extends these findings by providing evidence that exposure to sunlight, and not simply sunny weather, can increase an individual’s tendency to select a higher-risk course of action. In our first laboratory study, we manipulate exposure to outside sunlight and show increased risk taking on the Balloon Analog Risk Task—a standard behavioral measure. In our second laboratory study, we show that participants exposed to artificial sunlight choose to play higher-risk gambles than those exposed to standard sources of lighting. We further explore the hypothesized light-risk relationship using field data, both primary and secondary, and novel operationalizations of risk taking. In our first field study, we show that Singaporean drivers are more likely to risk parking tickets on sunnier days, as measured by solar radiation levels. In our second field study, we show that major league baseball players attempt to steal more bases during day games (versus night games) and on days with higher levels of solar radiation.
The current research investigates the effect of effectance motivation – the fundamental desire to be a competent agent in one’s environment – on people’s buying behavior. Specifically, we propose that a lack of perceived control over the environment drives individuals to satisfy their desire for effectance through increased buying and spending. In addition, we propose that heightened effectance motivation causes people to buy more utilitarian products (e.g., screwdrivers), which afford a sense of competence given these products’ functional determinism. The results of four experiments (two laboratory and two field) consistently support these hypotheses. The experiments also reveal that such compensatory buying behavior is accentuated among individuals with high need for closure (and thus high need for effectance), but attenuated when individuals acquire greater perceived control of the situation through information acquisition.