Gender and Personality Drivers of Consumer Mixed Emotional Response

Abstract

There is growing evidence the co-occurrence of both positive and negative emotions, or mixed emotions, is a common consumer response. Research on mixed emotions has improved our understanding over that of univariate measures by studying pairs of opposite-valence emotions (e.g., Larsen et al. 2001; Williams and Aaker 2002). Although examining several emotions should be more representative of actual consumption settings, there has been little effort to examine mixed emotions as aggregate positive and negative emotions. While affective reactions vary across individuals, there is a lack of insight into the influence of individual differences (e.g., gender and personality) on mixed emotions and attitudes. Examining gender as a driver of divergent mixed emotional response draws from differences between females and males in the experience and expression of emotion (Brody 1999; Grossman and Wood 1993).