The Effect Of Moods On The Information Processing Model And Consumers’ Attitudes

The purpose of this research is to understand the effect of moods on consumers’ attitudes, purchase intention, and cognition of product attributes. This research included two studies, and all the hypotheses in the two studies were examined by experiments. In the experiments, respondents’ moods were elicited by short films or music, and the cognition of product attributes and attitudes toward the product were measured.In study one, the relationship between consumers’ moods and their weights on product attributes were probed. The result of study one show that consumers in good mood incline to focus on the extrinsic attributes more than intrinsic attributes; the consumers in bad mood incline to pay more attention to the intrinsic attributes than extrinsic ones. For the neutral mood respondents, there is no difference between the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes in their decision weight. Therefore, this study show that moods indeed influence the cognition of product attributes.Following study one, study two discussed the effect of consumers’cognition that biased by moods on their attitudes toward products. The results show that when consumers in some moods and have certain tendencies to emphasize intrinsic or extrinsic product attributes, the advertisement that fits to their concerns can induce better attitude than that doesn’t fit. For example, consumers in good mood favor products appealing extrinsic attributes, such as brand and word-of mouth. On the other hand, if happy consumers see the intrinsic attributes appealing advertisement,such as function and volume, they won’t appreciate those advertisement and products.Study one and two discussed the process that mood influence attitude through cognition. However, according to the literature and life experience, there is another process that mood influences attitude directly and isn’t involved any cognitionlement.