How the consideration of positive emotions influences persuasion: The differential effect of pride versus joy

Noam Karsh, Tal Eyal

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Although pride and joy are both positive emotions, we expected their consideration to affect persuasion differently because of the different perspectives (near vs. distant) and level of abstractness they involve, with pride being more abstract than joy. Therefore, we predicted that when the attitude object is construed at a high level rather than a low level, the consideration of pride is likely to promote more persuasion than the consideration of joy. In three studies, we found that the consideration of pride, when featured in the persuasion message (Studies 1a and 1b) or incidentally (Study 2), increased persuasion more than did the consideration of joy, when the persuasion object was temporally distant compared with temporally near (Studies 1a and 1b) or construed as a high-level category compared with a more concrete individual (Study 2). These findings advance our understanding of the ways in which specific emotions may affect persuasion, beyond valence.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-35
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Behavioral Decision Making
Volume28
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords

  • Construal-level theory
  • Emotion
  • Persuasion
  • Psychological distance

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Decision Sciences
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Applied Psychology
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Strategy and Management

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