The Varieties of Consumption Experience: Comparing Two Typologies of Emotion in Consumer Behavior

Consumer researchers have recently turned their attention toward exploring the imaginative, emotional, and evaluative components of the consumption experience. Nevertheless, considerable work remains to be done on the emotional aspects of consumer behavior. Toward that end, this paper assesses the comparative reliabilities and validities of two competing typologies of emotion when they are applied to the representation of experiences associated with consumption activities. Specifically, independent samples of judges rated real experiential descriptions on either Mehrabian and Russell's (1974) PAD dimensions or Plutchik's (1980) emotional categories. Further, separate samples of judges evaluated artificial descriptions on the same competing frameworks. These data permit comparisons of reliability, internal validity, and external convergent validity for the two alternative schemes. The results favor Mehrabian and Russell's PAD paradigm and suggest the need for further research exploring types of emotional responses to the varieties of consumption experience.