Emotion regulation can be costly. A study on the effects of emotion regulation strategies on impulsive purchases in consumers

Mark Van Overveld

doi:10.21511/im.12(1).2016.04

Abstract

In retail, emotion-fueled impulse purchases constitute a large part of everyday consumer purchases. Thus, emotion regulation training could benefit consumers to help to control their impulsive buying. Yet, emotion regulation strategies are not unequivocally associated with positive effects. Since research investigating emotion regulation in consumer contexts is scarce, the goal of this study is to examine whether emotion regulation training could be a valuable tool for consumers to help to limit impulse spending. Customers at a local supermarket were recruited and randomly assigned to three groups: re-appraisal (n = 50), suppression (n = 50) and neutral (n = 50). The results show that re-appraisal does not differ affect impulse purchasing whilst the suppression group made significantly more impulse purchases and spent more compared to the neutral group. Yet, trait re-appraisal was associated with reduced impulsive purchasing in consumers with higher levels of negative emotions. The findings confirm that suppression appears a maladaptive form of emotion regulation and suggest that re-appraisal training could be a valuable tool for consumers, particularly for consumers with high levels of negative affect

Highlights

IntroductionThe findings confirm that suppression appears a maladaptive form of emotion regulation and suggest that reappraisal training could be a valuable tool for consumers, for consumers with high levels of negative affect
Customers at a local supermarket were recruited and randomly assigned to three groups: re-appraisal (n = 50), suppression (n = 50) and neutral (n = 50)
Suppression was associated with spending more money on impulsive purchases and making more impulsive purchases compared to the re-appraisal group

Summary

Introduction

The findings confirm that suppression appears a maladaptive form of emotion regulation and suggest that reappraisal training could be a valuable tool for consumers, for consumers with high levels of negative affect. Several emotion regulation strategies are widely established (Richards & Gross, 2000; Koole, 2009), such as cognitive re-appraisal (i.e., re-interpreting emotional stimuli to change their emotional impact) and expressive suppression (i.e, blocking emotional expression (Gross, 2007) These two emotion regulation styles are independently associated with a wide range of behaviors, like stress (Moore, Zoellner & Mollenholt, 2008), negotiation outcomes (Yurtsever, 2008), or social interactions (Peters, Overall & Jamieson, 2014). Everyday consumers could benefit greatly from training interventions to facilitate effective emotion regulation skills like cognitive re-appraisal to avoid impulsive purchasing

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