Feeling Mixed but Not Torn: The Moderating Role of Construal Level in Mixed Emotions Appeals

Jiewen Hong and Angela Y. Lee

Journal of Consumer Research, 2010, vol. 37, issue 3, 456-472

Abstract: This research examines how construal level (i.e., how abstractly or concretely people represent information in memory) affects consumers' responses to mixed emotions appeals. The results of five studies show that, consistent with prior research, participants experienced discomfort when they encountered mixed emotions appeals and developed less favorable attitudes toward the ad relative to pure positive emotional appeals, but this was the case only for those who construed information at a concrete, low level. Participants who construed information at an abstract, high level did not experience much discomfort; hence, they found mixed emotions and pure positive emotional appeals equally persuasive. We further demonstrate that the chronic construal level associated with people's age and cultural background underlies the moderating effects of age and culture on consumers' attitudes toward mixed emotions appeals documented in prior research. (c) 2010 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/653492 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:37:y:2010:i:3:p:456-472

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().