Immediate and Delayed Emotional Consequences of Indulgence: The Moderating Influence of Personality Type on Mixed Emotions

Abstract

The majority of literature looking at self-control dilemmas has focused on short-term positive and long-term negative affective outcomes arising from indulgence. In two studies, we find evidence for more complex emotional responses after indulgent consumption. We show that consumers feel simultaneous mixtures of both positive and negative emotions in response to indulgences and that the spe-cific components of those emotional mixtures vary, depending on differences in individual impulsivity. Further, these mixtures are resolved differently over time, leading to differences in subsequent choices. In addition we show that more prudent consumers are likely to seize an opportunity to get rid of, or “launder, ” their negative emotions after an indulgence by subsequently making utilitarian versus hedonic choices. Many of us experience a tinge of regret or stress evenas we delight in feelings of pleasure from our favorite indulgences, like splurging on an expensive dinner or dip-ping into the cookie jar. We make resolutions to ourselves that we will not consume so impulsively, or we promise ourselves that this will be the last time, positively. Several studies have documented that such feelings result from im-pulsive consumption (e.g., O’Guinn and Faber 1989; Rook 1987). Yet, in spite of such ambivalence toward temptations and well-meaning resolutions not to succumb again, con-sumers often end up repeating the same or similar choices. *Suresh Ramanathan is associate professor of marketing at the University