Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Impulse buying as an affective state of ambivalence
According to Damasio (2000), situations that evoke cognitive conflict tend to elicit specific affective 
reactions, such as guilt. Indeed, in the impulse buying research, Rook (1985) finds that impulse buying gives rise to 
a conflict between self-indulgence and reality principles and such conflict evokes conflicting affective responses 
from the consumer. While a consumer experiences positive affect (such as pleasure) spontaneously when buying on 
impulse, impulse buying is linked to guilt feelings (Rook, 1987). 
Increasing evidence in social psychology and consumer behavior research suggests that people can 
simultaneously experience conflicting emotions and very often such mixed emotions can peacefully coexist (Larsen, 
McGraw & Cacioppo, 2001; Williams & Aaker, 2002). Recent theorizing on affect argues that emotional valence is 
bivariate rather than bi-polar. Thus, not only can one simultaneously experience conflicting emotions, such joint 
experiences may be natural and frequently occurring (Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1997; Larsen, McGraw & 
Cacioppo, 2001). Thompson, Zanna and Griffin (1995) label such simultaneous experience of conflicting emotions 
as 
affective ambivalence
(or torn feelings).
Subjective ambivalence is a psychological state of conflict associated with a particular task (Priester & 
Petty, 1996). Conflict theory (Brown & Farber, 1951; Miller, 1944) defines ambivalence as a cognitive or affective 
state that: 1) has contradictory implications; 2) such contradictory implications carry subjectively equal significance 
or strength, and 3) occur in situations where end states are equally desirable. Affect theorists also make a distinction 
between “natural” primary emotions (e.g., pleasure or fear) and “acquired” secondary emotions (e.g., jealousy or 
guilt) (Damasio, 2000). Based on this classification, primary emotions are universal and are in all likelihood the 
result of the fine tunings of evolution, while secondary emotions are acquired by learning in a social and cultural 
context and their emotional significance is situation specific. In keeping with this view, impulse buying, through the 
pathway of indeterminacy, is likely to almost always result in certain level of pleasure (primary emotion). However, 
the guilt feeling is “acquired” and represents a conflict between self-indulgence and self-control. Guilt feeling 

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