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Consumer Emotional Intelligence: Conceptualization, Measurement, And The Prediction Of Consumer Decision Making

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Consumer Emotional Intelligence: Conceptualization, Measurement, and the Prediction of
Consumer Decision Making*
*Accepted for publication to Journal of Consumer Research on 09/14/2007.
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This research details the development of the “Consumer Emotional Intelligence Scale” (CEIS)
designed to measure individual differences in consumers’ ability to use emotional information.
Scale development procedures confirmed the theoretical structure of the 18-item scale. Results
supported the scale’s reliability and its discriminant and nomological validity. Our consumer
domain-specific measure predicted food choices better than a more domain-general alternative.
Furthermore, consumer emotional intelligence predicted food choices beyond cognitive
knowledge. Finally, consumer emotional intelligence was found to generalize to product-based
decision making. Theoretical implications of consumer emotional intelligence are discussed
along with areas of future research.
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Despite the importance of emotion in decision making (Luce 1998; Pham 1998; Ruth
2001), research has yet to fully understand how consumers’ use emotional information to make
effective decisions. A growing body of research continues to focus on the emotions present in
consumption situations; however, a better understanding of emotional processing abilities may
have important effects on consumer performance outcomes. The current research focuses on
emotional intelligence in the consumer domain in light of past research focusing solely on
general emotional intelligence. Consumer emotional intelligence (CEI) is defined here as a
person’s ability to skillfully use emotional information to achieve a desired consumer outcome.
CEI comprises a set of first-order emotional abilities that allow individuals to recognize the
meanings of emotional patterns that underlie decision making and to reason and solve problems
on the basis of these abilities (Mayer and Salovey 1997).
This ability-based...