An approach to investigating the emotional determinants of consumption durations: Why do people consume what they consume for as long as they consume it?

Abstract

Previous work in consumer research has left questions concerning the duration of consumption largely unexplored and, in particular, has neglected the possible role of emotions in determining the length of time that consumers devote to consumption experiences. This study proposes an approach to investigating these questions and illustrates its application to the context of examining the connection between emotional responses and listening receptivity to music. Specifically, Affect Grid was used to select a set of musical stimuli judged as varying widely in pleasure and arousal. In an individually administered listening task, 58 subjects listened to these musical selections in different random orders for as long as they wanted before rating their feelings on the Affect Grid. Listening time was measured unobtrusively when rewinding the tapes between sessions with subjects. As hypothesized, the results show that log (tempo) strongly affects arousal, that listening time follows a nonmonotonic relation which peaks at intermediate levels of arousal, and that these peaks shift from left to right as pleasure increases.