Recently marketing researchers have begun to direct attention to the influence of “mood” on consumer behavior. Researchers generally assume that commonly used mood manipulations produce “converging effects” and do not create confounds with other explanatory variables. The authors question this assumption and show that two different versions of the same mood manipulation are capable of producing comparable mood states that have significantly different effects on subjects’ perceived self-efficacy and subsequent decision-making effort. The results suggest that future studies of mood should be designed to better differentiate mood effects from potential confounds.
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