The Influence of Incidental Affect on Consumers’ Food Intake

By N. Garg, Brian Wansink, J. Inman. 2007

370 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although incidental affect has been shown to influence both attitude and purchase behavior, it has not been extended to actual consumption. This research investigates whether specific affective states influence food consumption and whether this influence is moderated by factors such as information and the nature of the product (hedonic versus less hedonic). The authors show that an integrative mood management and mood evaluation framework accounts for this relationship more effectively than a self-regulation explanation. A preliminary test and two lab studies show that people eat larger amounts of hedonic foods (buttered popcorn and M&M's) when they are in a sad state than when they are in a happy state and that this effect is attenuated when nutritional information is present. In contrast, they tend to eat larger amounts of a less hedonic product (raisins) when they are in a happy state than when they are in a sad state. The authors discuss implications for responsible marketers, health professionals, and health conscious consumers in the context of campaigns and individual efforts.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Marketing

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/12a94b8c9157a25169459cb8abfb34eba511760b

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Citations in the corpus

Emotion regulation consumption: When feeling better is the aim (2011, background): “Recent studies in consumer research have demonstrated that individuals may engage in consumption to downregulate or decrease negative emotions (Andrade, 2005; Garg et al., 2007).”
Helpful Hopefulness: The Effect of Future Positive Emotions on Consumption (2011, neutral): “We focus specifically on comparing happiness and hopefulness in study 1 because much of the research on positive affect and self-control examines positive affect as a general state of happiness (e.g., Garg et al. 2007; Labroo and Patrick 2009).”
Self-consciousness and emotions driving femvertising: A path analysis of women’s attitude towards femvertising, forwarding intention and purchase intention (2019, background): “Marketers make attempts to target consumers’ emotions as research showed that emotions play a critical role in decision-making (Garg, Wansink, and Inman 2007).”
It is all in the mix: The interactive effect of music tempo and mode on in-store sales (2012, background): “For example, sad mood inductions have been shown to result in increased food intake (Garg et al. 2007), increased price of product choice (Lerner et al. 2004), and increased spending (Cryder et al. 2008).”
Slim by Design: Redirecting the Accidental Drivers of Mindless Overeating (2014, background): “People eat more popcorn and M&M’s when they are in a sad mood because they are watching a sad movie but eat more raisins when they are watching a happy movie (Garg, Wansink, and Inman (2007).”
The Benefits of Retail Therapy: Making Purchase Decisions Reduces Residual Sadness (2014, background): “Most work in this area has focused on how specific emotions influence decision-making and consumption (e.g., Cryder et al., 2008; Garg & Lerner, 2013; Garg et al., 2007; Lerner et al., 2004).”
The role of advertising in consumer emotion management (2012, background): “Consumer research has demonstrated that emotions play an important role in decision making (Garg et al. 2007) and marketers have long made attempts to target consumers’ emotions.”
Cross-Domain Effects of Guilt on Desire for Self-Improvement Products (2015, background): “Accordingly, sadness is typically associated with the selection of rewarding options that will compensate for the heightened negative mood (e.g., spending time with friends over studying; Garg, Wansink, and Inman 2007; consistent with self-improvement than sadness.”
The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-Being (2013, background): “Garg et al. (2007) found that people put in a sad mood as part of an experiment were more likely to eat tasty but fattening foods, such as buttered popcorn, rather than a healthy fruit.”