Emotions in Consumer Behavior

I found an article called, “Proud to Belong or Proudly Different? Lay Theories Determine

Contrasting Effects of Incidental Pride on Uniqueness Seeking” by Xun Huang, Ping Dong,

Anirban Mukhopadhyay. Their research supports that people feel pride of their personal traits

tend to seek out unique options to set themselves apart.

They described pride as, “an emotional response to success or achievement” and “a

positive, self-conscious emotion.” In the article they explain how pride has an influence on a

consumer’s self-control. They have described consumers with pride to tend to differ from

others in the purchases that they make by choosing “minority-endorsed options.” Two types of

pride are discussed in the article; hubristic pride which is accompanied by feelings of superiority

and narcissism and then there is authentic pride which comes from hard work and

perseverance. Hubristic pride comes more from natural traits; intelligence or good looks. They

have targeted this desire for uniqueness to hubristic pride. People demonstrating hubristic

pride preferred advertisements that expressed uniqueness over popularity (Xuh).

It is important to take the two types of pride into consideration in marketing

techniques. Although many consumers lean towards popular products others are looking for

something more unique. Showing how a product is special and how it is better than other

products will really appeal to people with hubristic pride. In their research studies, have

participants recalling times when they felt pride, had an effect on the choices they made.

The article discusses three hypothesis:

Consumers experiencing hubristic pride will be more likely to prefer the minority-

endorsed option.

Consumers’ need for uniqueness due to hubristic pride will result in consumers seeking

the less popular product choice.

Hubristic pride is attributed to traits, which increases the desire for uniqueness.

These hypothesis were tested through 6 experiments with students. Through these

experiments test consumers demonstrating hubristic pride were more likely to choose the

unique option in almost every case, supporting the hypothesis (Xuh).

This article is relevant to chapter 8 when talking about emotions. The main emotion this

article discussed was how pride affect consumers. It identified that the level/type of pride

someone displayed affected their desire for uniqueness. The article identified that by having a

consumer recall an experience it may have an effect on their product decisions. In the course

text book it talks about how people purchase products to experience emotional states and

achieve emotional goals. This matches what the article discusses. People with hubristic pride

want to buy things that are special to reinforce the feeling of self-pride. They want to add to

their pride through the products that they purchase. People with hubristic pride see the

qualities that make them stand out from others and don’t want to diminish those traits by

purchasing products that make them blend in with others.

Although this article focuses on just one emotion, pride, it requires you to think about

how all emotions are having an impact on the consumers’ decision making process. Emotions

are playing a consistent role in what the consumer purchases. In this case it was related to the

desire to be unique. But other cases could be the desire to look thinner, the desire to blend in,

or the desire to feel better. Emotions have a huge role in what consumers are choosing to buy

and marketers have to take this into consideration to effectively reach a variety of consumers.

Works Cited

Xun, Huang, Dong Ping, and Anirban Mukhopadhyay. "Proud To Belong Or Proudly Different?

Lay Theories Determine Contrasting Effects Of Incidental Pride On Uniqueness Seeking."

Journal Of Consumer Research 41.3 (Oct 2014): 697-712. Academic Search Complete.

Web. 1 Nov. 2014.