This dissertation explores how nonconscious thought processing might be affected and activated in ways that influence consumer decision making. To activate nonconscious thought processes, this dissertation relies on priming—the unobtrusive activation of mental representations by stimuli in a social context, which occurs without participants' conscious awareness. Three dimensions of consumer decision making are investigated: purchase intention, product evaluation and arousal. The dissertation is based on the auto-motive model of nonconscious goal pursuit and somatic marker hypothesis. The dissertation is driven by three experiments, which respectively explore crucial areas in priming effects and addresses the following research question: can primes be shaped or controlled by marketers? Specifically, the dissertation examines whether shopping behavior can be primed. Second, the dissertation also examines how facial primes displaying basic emotions (happiness, anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, and surprise) can prime emotion and arousal. Finally the dissertation examines the effect of the interaction of the buying prime with the primes of faces displaying basic emotions on the dependent variables of purchase intention, product evaluation, emotion, and arousal. Results from three experimental studies show that shopping behavior can be primed, and primed participants will exhibit higher product evaluation than those exposed to a control prime. Second while exposing participants to primes of faces displaying emotions did not elicit those emotions, the priming with faces did reveal a marginal activation of arousal in the participants. Third priming with faces was not found to interact with primed buying behavior such that the interaction would affect the level of arousal. The results indicate that Bargh's auto-motive model of nonconscious goal pursuit can be applied to marketing. Thus priming shopping behavior can affect product evaluation though the effect of this prime appears to be too weak to be applied in the field. Priming with faces was found not to interact with primed shopping behavior and thus affect product evaluation. The impact of the findings on marketing practitioners suggests that more laboratory investigation is necessary. Further laboratory investigation should be used to raise the effect level of the prime and to find ways to shape and control nonconscious goal pursuit prior to attempting to bring priming into the field.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Indiana Bicentennial Torch Relay was a one-of-a-kind event that involved over 2,000 participants from all 92 counties. The event was created to invoke community pride and connectivity. The purpose of this study is to understand the emotions and perceptions of participants in a state-wide Hallmark event. To achieve the purpose of this study, this research studied the perception and emotions of the participants of the state-wide event. Participants filled out an online survey with questions related to their sense of community, perception and emotions of the event. Four different scales from previous research were used in the survey. A total of 490 participants responded to the survey. Normality and nonparametric tests were performed. The results of the tests showed an increase in positive affect after the event than before. Most of the perceptions of the event were shown to be relatively similar based on proximity and population of the counties. Showing that no matter the population of the community, perceptions of the event could be very similar.

The construct of guilt has been a subject of debate among philosophers, theologians, sociologists and psychologists for centuries. Disagreements concerning guilt have emerged on the definitional level, measurement level, and conceptual level due to the various ways guilt can be experienced and interpreted. Researchers continue to empirically investigate various aspects of guilt in an effort to advance and refine our understanding of the construct; however, differences among researchers in assessing the impact of guilt on psychological well-being still exist. The purpose of this study is to investigate the internal factor structure of three prominent measures of guilt. This will enable us to develop a more concise guilt measure en route to reconciling these differences and better conceptualizing the construct.

Previous research has indicated that emotion regulation (ER) strategy use is crucial for predicting emotional and behavioral functioning. The current study examined the construct of ER by integrating ER strategy use with flexibility to use strategies and overall level of experienced emotion to determine the adaptiveness of ER as a process. Self-report data regarding strategy use, flexibility, and affect intensity was collected from undergraduate psychology students (N = 380). A latent class analysis (LCA) was used to test the predicted 4-class model of ER. A 4-class model and 2-class model were supported. MANOVA results indicated that both models predicted outcomes of ER difficulties, secure attachment, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors; the comparison model of high/low strategy use did not predict ER difficulties or internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Our results suggest that integrating strategy use, flexibility, and emotionality yields classes of ER predict functioning better than strategy use alone.

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