Investigation of emotional responses to an unexpected price

This article investigates the emotions elicited from observing unexpectedly high or low prices, and how such emotions relate to purchase intentions. The experiment conducted to analyze these issues found that neutral emotions, surprised and amazed, were strongly elicited in both types of experiences. Among the various emotions elicited, discontented, depressed, and frustrated were felt strongly in the negative experience and pleased, excited, enthusiastic, contented, and thrilled were felt strongly in the positive experience. Moreover, most emotions were found to be the mediators of the effect of the price experience on purchase intentions. A structure for the unexpected price emotions was then investigated and found to be much simpler compared to that of consumption emotions presented by Richins [Richins, M.L., 1997. Measuring emotions in the consumption experience. Journal of Consumer Research 24 (9), 127–146].