The interactive effects of bitter flavor and mood on the decision to spend or save money

•Drinking a bitter beverage increases happy participants' inclination to save money.•Drinking a bitter beverage decreases unhappy participants' inclination to save money.•Priming bitterness-related concepts increases happy participants' inclination to save money.•Priming bitterness-related concepts decreases unhappy participants' inclination to save money.•Drinking a bitter beverage decreases happy participants' actual impulsive purchases.

People are more inclined to spend money when they are happy than when they are sad. However, unobtrusive situational factors that activate the concepts of a bitter life can reverse these effects. In line with this reasoning, our research shows that drinking a bitter beverage increases happy participants' inclination to save money but decreases unhappy participants' disposition to do so. These effects were confirmed in three lab experiments. Moreover, two field studies provided evidence that the results generalize to actual savings decisions and to impulsive purchases in an actual shopping situation.