Feeling Mixed but Not Torn: The Moderating Role of Construal Level in Mixed Emotions Appeals

This research examines how construal level (i.e., how abstractly or concretely people represent information in memory) affects consumers ’ responses to mixed emotions appeals. The results of five studies show that, consistent with prior research, participants experienced discomfort when they encountered mixed emotions appeals and developed less favorable attitudes toward the ad relative to pure positive emotional appeals, but this was the case only for those who construed information at a concrete, low level. Participants who construed information at an abstract, high level did not experience much discomfort; hence, they found mixed emotions and pure positive emotional appeals equally persuasive. We further demonstrate that the chronic construal level associated with people’s age and cultural background underlies the moderating effects of age and culture on consumers’ attitudes toward mixed emotions appeals documented in prior research. Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite, are contrived to be constant companions. (Pierre Charron, French thinker) In a recent Bud Light commercial, a young woman was sharing her feelings of mixed emotions with her mother on her wedding day. While feeling happy and excited on this important day of her life, the bride expressed her worries and concerns and asked her mother how to make the marriage work. And the mother’s advice was to do the things he likes, including giving him his Bud Light. Based on recent findings that mixed emotions often lead to discomfort and in turn less favorable attitudes (Williams and Aaker 2002), the advertiser might be well advised to replace the ad with one that associates Bud Light with festive celebrations of the wedding rather than with the mixed feelings of