Positive and Negative Experiences in Marketing and Consumer Decision Making

Both marketers and consumers encounter many emotional experiences in their daily lives. Emotional experiences of different positive emotions (e.g., pride, gratitude, satisfaction) and of negative emotions (e.g., shame, guilt, anger) may influence their decisions. Yet, we hardly know how emotions play a role in the decisions of marketers. We have some knowledge of how emotions play a role in the decisions of consumers, but this knowledge mostly concerns one or two specific emotions. An overview of how multiple emotions influence consumer decision making is currently absent. I believe that the influences of specific emotions on marketing and on consumer decision making can be understood with the help of a distinction between decision contexts (e.g., endogenous or exogenous emotion influences), and of emotion appraisal dimensions. Emotions can be defined with five or six emotion appraisal dimensions, such as valence (whether the emotion is positive or negative), agency (whether the emotion is caused by the actor, by another person, or by the situation), power (whether the actor feels powerful or powerless), arousal or activity, and certainty. I suggest that, dependent on the emotion context, the decision making setting, and on the decision to be made, emotion influences of specific emotions on marketing or consumer decision making can be predicted with one or multiple emotion appraisal dimensions. In this way, I try to understand emotion influences on for example advice taking, product-harm crises, collaborations, gift giving, authenticity perceptions, product purchases and evaluations, food waste decisions, and (un)packaging experiences.