Can mixed emotions peacefully coexist

Abstract

This research sheds insight on the psychological impact of mixed emotions on attitudes. In three experiments, we show that persuasion appeals that highlight conflicting emotions (e.g., both happiness and sadness) lead to less favorable attitudes for individuals with a lower propensity to accept duality (e.g., Anglo Amer-icans, younger adults) relative to those with a higher propensity (e.g., Asian Amer-icans, older adults). The effect appears to be due to increased levels of felt dis-comfort that arise for those with a lower, but not higher, propensity to accept duality when exposed to mixed emotional appeals. Theoretical implications regarding boundary conditions of emotional dissonance and distinctions between emotional and cognitive dissonance are discussed. Consider a recent appeal for the insurance company,New York Life (actual ad, circa 2001). The television advertisement focuses on a widow and her children grieving over the loss of their beloved husband and father, yet at the same time expressing gratitude for the sense of comfort and security that his life insurance policy is able to provide for them. Similarly, embedded in a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine is a two-page print advertisement filled with white space and the single sentence, “She can make me laugh even when I’m mad at her, ” closing with “That Certain Something, Diet Coke.” The above examples illustrate the use of mixed emotions in persuasive appeals. While considerable research in con-sumer behavior has focused on the influence of pure emo-tions in persuasion (e.g., Aaker and Williams 1998; Burke and Edell 1986; Edell and Burke 1987; Holbrook and Batra 1987), less work has been done on the topic of experiencing mixed emotions and the consequences of doing so. A grow-ing interest in the emotional nature of persuasion processes and in the role of conflicting psychological states, in par-ticular, make this gap in the consumer behavior literature even more significant (see, e.g., Bagozzi, Wong, and Y