Mood-Driven Distortion of Product Information

Abstract

During the consumer choice process, predecisional distortion is the biased evaluation of new product information to support a tentatively preferred brand. An experiment revealed that creating a good mood by the unexpected gift of a bag of candy doubled the magnitude of this bias. Furthermore, information that seemed to preserve the good mood but disconfirmed the tentative preference (by being positive about the trailing brand) had greater impact than did mood-disrupting, negative information about the leading brand. The results, especially those for the disconfirming information, were compatible with the goal of mood management. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.