Reconciling Satisfaction, Emotions, Attitudes, and Ambivalence within Consumer Models of Judgment and Decision Making: A Cautionary Tale

Abstract

This study asserts that Marketers have yet to realize a full understanding of how satisfaction and attitudes work together to influence consumer decision making within such models, particularly in the presence of consumer ambivalence. A theoretical model of consumer JDM is first proposed that purports to reconcile emerging attitudinal models of goal-directed behaviors with satisfaction theory in a manner that helps clarify the unique roles of attitudes and satisfaction as well as accommodates the phenomenon of ambivalence. Marketing's traditional perspective suggests an assumption of sequential emotions which implies that consumption-related emotions must be either positive or negative.