Posted
Jul 2008
Emotion and Consumer Behavior
Can anger make us choose a hiking trip vacation?
Based on the Research of Derek D. Rucker And Richard E. Petty
When imagining a vacation, which resort do individuals prefer: a quiet retreat to relax at or an active destination to explore? Derek Rucker (Kellogg School of Management, marketing department) and Richard Petty (Ohio State University, psychology department) examined the influence of specific emotions on consumer choices and the implications of those influences for persuasion.
The study of emotion and persuasion has a long history, an important strand of which has been the role of the valence, a positive or negative charge, of an emotion and its influence on judgments and persuasion. Rucker and Petty build on this area and focus on emotions with the same valence. Previous research has shown that some negative emotions, such as anger and anxiety, involve a state of high psychological and physiological arousal (such as increased heart rate, increased left-prefrontal activity in the brain). Other negative emotions, such as sadness and depression, involve a state of low arousal. Using these facts, Rucker and Petty examined how the level of emotion activation affects persuasion. Since people use emotions as sources of information, emotions may signal what type of action is more appropriate or desired. The authors proposed that emotions with high arousal levels may signal that activity is desired and lead consumers to prefer action-oriented events. Emotions paired with low arousal levels may signal inactivity and lead consumers to prefer passive events.
… emotions with high arousal levels may signal that activity is desired and lead consumers to prefer action-oriented events. Emotions paired with low arousal levels may signal inactivity and lead consumers to prefer passive events.To test this hypothesis, Rucker and Petty conducted an experiment in which the participants, undergraduate college students, were induced into angry or sad moods through reading an emotion-evoking narrative disguised as a magazine article. They were asked to imagine the events being described as they read the article. The article used to induce anger described hatred and protests against the United States in the Middle East. The article used to induce sadness described the effects of a natural disaster on a small village in Africa.
Participants in the experiment were then presented with advertisements for two vacation resorts in Orlando, Florida, and were asked to rate their preferred vacation. One vacation advertisement described a relaxing resort (passive frame), while the other advertisement described an active resort (active frame). The passive frame characterized “a perfect place for people to relax and rest,” while the active frame characterized “a perfect place for people who want to actively explore.”
The results were consistent with the hypothesis, and the interaction between emotion and the framing of the message was statistically significant. Anger-induced individuals indicated a preference for the active resort. On the contrary, individuals that were induced to sadness showed a significant preference for the passive resort. This suggests that there is a matching effect between the consumer’s emotional state and the level of activity, passive or active, evoked by the location.
Can persuasion be increased, or consumer choice affected, by matching perceived activity level to a particular emotional state? Rucker and Petty would answer affirmatively and present this research to bolster that idea. They mention examples that put this result into practice: television marketers may decide to display a more passive activity in their advertisements following a drama show in order to connect emotionally with the audience. Car advertisements during a movie like “Fahrenheit 911” could benefit from focusing on the action of driving, while commercials aired during a sad movie such as “Hotel Rwanda” would be more effective featuring the relaxation and comfort of driving a car. These results are noteworthy for advertising, marketing, and business strategies in that advertisements can be designed to resonate with the activity level of emotions and thereby increase the effectiveness of the advertising.
2 Comments
Apr 19 2009
It will be interesting to know the percentage breakup of respondents who behaved as expected under the hypothesis.
Personally i feel if i view a emotionally sad story on TV and the following ad is passive - i most probably will not take note of it. I being i a sad state of mind will need cheering up and possibly take note of an ad which has something cheerful about life.
I will appreciate if i get some response from the authors.
Apr 20 2009
Vimal,
Your comment reinforces a fundamental question in psychology and marketing. Namely, your point reminds us that consumers behavior is a result of both the situation and the individual. That is, consumers’ reactions will be determined by both contextual factors, such as the framing of their message, and idiosyncratic factors unique to themselves, such as how they choose to cope with emotions. What this research tells us is that, on average, the situation seems to elicit a matching preference.
As for percentages, in that paper we report a broad measure of preference using a continuous scale. So, it’s not percentage of preference but relative degree of preference. What we know is that there is a statistically reliable effect such that people show a stronger preference messages that match in a manner described in the paper. And, I would be careful to focus too much on even the size of the effect in this context. I would not want marketers to generalize from one study the size of the effect for their brand. Rather, what weve established is the direction of the effect. For some brands interested in maximizing a particular execution that might be enough. For others interested in knowing the degree of advantage they should explore it within their contexts to see how big of a role it plays.
At the same time, while this research tells us there is a matching effect, it certainly does not preclude individual responses such as your own. Indeed, to take an extreme example, most people would probably respond more positively to a picture of an ice cream cone than a snake. These stimuli have strong effects across people. Nonetheless, there might be some individuals for whom snakes are more pleasurable than ice cream cones. So, I like your comment as it reminds us not to forget about individual differences.
It might be interesting and fruitful for future research to better examine and explain the interplay of the situation and the person in this work.
Best,
Derek