What You Expect is What You Get: The Role of Affective Expectations in Real-World Experiences

Laboratory research has shown that expectations can impact a person’s affective experience in a positive or a negative way depending on factors such as how fine-grained an evaluation is (with fine-grained evaluations leading to contrast effects; Wilson, Lisle, Kraft, & Wetzel, 1989). These findings have been integrated into the Affective Expectation Model. The model has not yet been applied to situations outside the laboratory which raises several problems: So far, there was no control for possible demand characteristics or other confounds and it was not possible to make a prediction about whether assimilation or contrast predominates in real-life situations. To solve these problems, we interviewed moviegoers before and after they had watched movies (Study 1) and analyzed incidental data in the form of more than 1.5 million product ratings from approximately 2500 video games and movies (Studies 2a and 2b). The data consistently supported the assimilation hypothesis of affective expectations, that is, positive expectations lead to positive experiences.

Savoring an Upcoming Experience Affects Ongoing and Remembered Consumption Enjoyment

Five studies, using diverse methodologies, distinct consumption experiences, and different manipulations, demonstrate the novel finding that savoring an upcoming consumption experience heightens enjoyment of the experience both as it unfolds in real time (ongoing enjoyment) and when it is remembered (remembered enjoyment). This theory predicts that the process of savoring an upcoming experience creates affective memory traces that are reactivated and integrated into the actual and remembered consumption experience. Consistent with this theorizing, factors that interfere with consumers’ motivation, ability, or opportunity to form or retrieve affective memory traces of savoring an upcoming experience limit the effect of savoring on ongoing and remembered consumption enjoyment. Affective expectations, moods, imagery, and mindsets do not explain the observed findings.