This research challenges the cognitive view of consumers as goal-driven, rational, problem-solving, information processors. Consumer’s feeling states, or affective responses, are viewed as beneficial to consumers in that they provide information for the decision-making process. Two separate studies, based on two divergent perspectives, were conducted to investigate consumers’ feeling states. An experimental study investigated the relationships between affective responses and product evaluations. Specifically, the economic theory of information was extended to include "affective information" and a model was developed that hypothesized that affective responses to affective information would influence subsequent product evaluations. Two experiments were conducted to examine the model. One experiment tested this notion using a verbal communication method (i.e., a written product description) and the other experiment employed the use of a visual communication method (i.e., a video). In general, the results supported the influence of affective responses on expectations of perceived quality across both communication methods. Moreover, when affective components were added to models based on cognitive responses only, significantly more variance was explained. The second study focused on an in-depth examination of consumer shopping experiences, centering on the feelings consumers experience while shopping, as a result of shopping, and during consumption of the products purchased. Moreover, the meaning of these shopping experiences, to the consumer, was also investigated. Six existential-phenomenological, in-depth interviews were conducted to develop both the structure of each participant’s shopping experiences and an interpretation of their meaning to the participants. In general, it was found that shopping is a relationship between self, others, and the world (i.e., environments such as social and political); it is an expressive communication act that discloses self to others and at the same time reflects meaning about self back from objects and others. Concomitantly, the world acts to constrain this process. Shopping is an emotional experience that appears to be highly influenced by significant others. The penalties and rewards of shopping are defined as much by others as they are defined by self. Moreover, the process of shopping appears to contribute as much to the meaning of shopping as does the result of shopping (i.e., the product purchased). The response of others to purchase decisions attached meaning for the shopping process and for the products purchased. / Ph. D.