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Emotional Intelligence Helps Make Better Product Choices

Date:
June 3, 2008
Source:
University of Chicago Press Journals
Summary:
People with highly developed emotional sensibilities are better at making product choices, according to a new study. This research establishes a new method for assessing consumers' emotional intelligence.
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People with highly developed emotional sensibilities are better at making product choices, according to a new study.

“Consumers who understand their emotional ability can make higher quality consumption decisions such as health decisions and product choices,” explain the authors, Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Terry L. Childers (University of Kentucky). “A person can know a lot about nutrition and know what foods are not healthy, but can still make poor decisions when unable to recognize, reason, and solve problems based on emotional patterns,” they add. For example, compulsive eaters may understand nutrition, but they may not realize their emotions affect their food choices. 

This research establishes a new method for assessing consumers’ emotional intelligence. The authors developed a scale by testing undergraduates with more than 110 questions about emotions and consumption. As a result of this research, the authors were able to determine which emotion-related questions best predicted overeating.

The researchers then narrowed the questions to 18. They measured four different dimensions of consumer emotional ability: perceiving, facilitating, understanding, and managing emotions.  This 18-item scale—called the CEIS, or Consumer Emotional Intelligence Scale—is a highly reliable indicator of consumer behavior.

It seems consumers who care about healthy eating need to consider their feelings instead of studying nutrition labels.


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Materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Terry L. Childers. Consumer Emotional Intelligence: Conceptualization, Measurement, and the Prediction of Consumer Decision Making. Journal of Consumer Research, June 2008

Cite This Page:

University of Chicago Press Journals. "Emotional Intelligence Helps Make Better Product Choices." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 June 2008. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080530132111.htm>.
University of Chicago Press Journals. (2008, June 3). Emotional Intelligence Helps Make Better Product Choices. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080530132111.htm
University of Chicago Press Journals. "Emotional Intelligence Helps Make Better Product Choices." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080530132111.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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