| This four-chapter dissertation examines how consumers use positive emotion as an input to choice for experiential products such as leisure travel. A multimethod empirical approach is employed to develop and validate a model of consumer decision-making that integrates emotion as a cause, not just as a result, of the choice process. Essay 1 uses qualitative methods, including depth interviews, observation of sales encounters, and a constant-comparative analytic approach to develop emergent theory in order to understand the lived choice process for pleasure vacations. Among the findings is that consumers have difficulty remembering and expressing positive emotion in the decision context. Instead, feelings are couched in imagery and symbolism. Moreover, positive emotion emerges when the decision is related to salient self-identity concerns and goals. Finally, the decision itself tends to be multi-staged, with positive emotion exerting an effect early in the process, and a more analytic approach occurring later.;Essay 2 extends this theme by testing relationships in a model derived in Essay 1 and called the two-decision model of choice processing for experiential products. Essay 2 features a pilot study, four pretests, and three experiments. The main hypothesis is that when a consumer's self-identity is salient, positive decision emotion is enhanced, and preference and choice for an emotionally-evocative experiential product alternative (e.g., a resort-hotel choice) increases. Results of the experiments generally support this proposition, though a consistently significant association between self-saliency and decision emotion failed to emerge. The effect of positive decision emotion on preference and choice is significant, distinct from that of positive mood and imagery, and enhanced when consumers are instructed to focus on their feelings. Moreover, consumers with higher emotional intelligence, in particular the dimension of emotional clarity, experience greater positive decision emotion and preference/choice for more emotionally-evocative product alternatives. The culmination of the findings presented in this dissertation is the conclusion that positive emotion does matter as a choice input for experiential products. The implication for marketers is the knowledge that consumer decisions are often a function of emotional information and can be influenced by cues that facilitate affective information processing. |
