Feeling Like My Self: Emotion Profiles and Social Identity

Abstract

Individuals possess social identities that contain unique, identity-relevant attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs providing "what-to-do" information when enacting that identity. We suggest that social identities are also associated with specific discrete emotion profiles providing "what-to-feel" information during identity enactment. We show that consumers prefer emotional stimuli consistent with their salient social identity, make product choices and emotion regulating consumption decisions to enhance (reduce) their experience of identity-consistent (inconsistent) emotions, and that experiencing identity-consistent emotions aids in the performance of identity-relevant tasks.