When consumers follow their feelings: The impact of affective or cognitive focus on the basis of consumers' choice

Abstract

The authors assumed that automatic preferences based on lower-order affective processes have a greater impact on choice when people focus on their affective response to choice options (affective focus) than when they try to find reasons for their preferences (cognitive focus). They further supposed that the impact of the focus during decision making is less important when the cognitive resources of consumers are constrained. In an experiment, participants had to choose between two options while the cognitive or affective focus and processing resources were manipulated. Measures of automatic preferences correlated with choice under an affective, but not under a cognitive, focus. In contrast to expectations, this effect of focus was not moderated by the manipulation of processing resources. Interestingly, the automatic measures contributed to the prediction of choice under an affective focus independently and apart from self-report measures. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.