‘I’ versus ‘You’: Self-focus as a Mediator of Emotion Effects on Self-control

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that behavior and consumption are related with the emotion that a person is experiencing. In deed, research on incidental or ambient emotions has discovered the pervasive tendency of emotions to carry over from one situation to another, coloring behavior in unrelated tasks (e.g., Keltner and Lerner 2010; Loewenstein and Lerner 2003). Among emotions, sadness is unique because of two important reasons. First, although negative, sadness does not conform to the standard predictions based on its emotional valence. Based on a valence-based model, one would predict that negative emotions, including sadness, will trigger generalized negative assessments of the environment and lead one to perceive the world in negative ways. In contrast, sadness actually triggers positive valuation of new products, as measured by willingness to pay (Lerner, Small, and Loewenstein 2004). Second, the carryover effect of sadness drives consumption behavior across diverse domains. In the domain of eating, for example, sadness (relative to happiness) leads to increased consumption of tasty, fattening food products, such as buttered popcorn and M&M candies (Garg, Wansink, and Inman 2007; Garg and Lerner 2013). In the domain of consumer transactions, sadness (relative to a neutral state) increases the amount people spend to purchase items (Lerner et al. 2004).