The role of affect in perceptions of brand name and price : effects and underlying cognitive mechanisms

Participants who had been induced to feel either happy or not were asked to judge products described by both categorical information (e.g., brand name) and individuating information (e.g., price). These judgments pertained to quality, monetary sacrifice, value, liking and willingness to buy. A parameter estimation procedure was used to isolate the simultaneous effects that affect can have (a) on the importance that participants attached to each piece of information in making judgments, (b) on their perception of its evaluative implications, and (c) as a source of information in its own right. Inducing positive affect at the time product information was received increased the influence of brand name on judgments. This increase was due to the impact of positive affect on not only the importance participants attached to brand name but also their perception of its favorableness. Participants also gave greater importance to brand name when its valence was evaluatively consistent with the affect they were experiencing. Finally, the affect that participants experienced influenced their initial impressions of the product. As expected, the impact of affect was often contingent on the type of information presented and in several cases the type of judgment to be made