This research explores a phenomenon that pervades many realms of consumer behavior-the various ways that consumers cope with stress and negative emotions. In study 1, I generate and test a multidimensional scale to measure the coping construct, revealing a more diverse set of strategies than accounted for in the consumer literature on coping. I test competing theories about the hierarchical structure of the coping construct. Study 2 validates these findings and begins to establish theoretical links between the coping dimensions and their antecedent relationships with discrete emotions. In contrast to extant research linking emotions and coping, which has only investigated main effect hypotheses, I conceptualize and find empirical evidence for a model in which emotions interact with appraisals jointly to enact coping strategies. This research contributes to the emerging consumer coping literature by enriching existing theoretical conceptualizations of consumer coping processes and by validating a scale that should prove useful in consumer research. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

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Recently, it has been proposed that creating compelling experiences in the distinctive consumption environment defined by the Internet depends on facilitating a state of flow. Although it has been established that consumers do, in fact, experience flow while using the Web, consumer researchers do not as yet have a comprehensive understanding of the specific activities during which consumers actually have these experiences. One fruitful focus of research on online consumer experience has been on two distinct categories of consumption behavior—goal directed and experiential consumption behavior. Drawing distinctions between these behaviors for the Web may be particularly important because the experiential process is, for many individuals, as or even more important than the final instrumental result. However, the general and broad nature of flow measurement to date has precluded a precise investigation of flow during goal‐directed versus experiential activities. In this article, we explore this issue, investigating whether flow occurs during both experiential and goal‐directed activities, if experiential and goal‐directed flow states differ in terms of underlying constructs, and what the key characteristics are—based on prior theory—that define “types” of flow experiences reported on the Web. Our approach is to perform a series of quantitative analyses of qualitative descriptions of flow experiences provided by Web users collected in conjunction with the 10th GVU WWW User Survey. In contrast with previous research that suggests flow would be more likely to occur during recreational activities than task‐oriented activities, we found more evidence of flow for task‐oriented rather than experiential activities, although there is evidence flow occurs under both scenarios. As a final note, we argue that the role that goal‐directed and experiential activities may play in facilitating the creation of compelling online environments may also be important in a broader consumer policy context.

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This article presents three studies on how the negative emotions of guilt and shame differentially influence the effectiveness of health messages framed as gains or losses. Guilt appeals are more effective when paired with gain frames, whereas shame appeals are more effective when paired with loss frames. These framing effects occur because gain frames facilitate the use of problem-focused coping strategies favored by guilt, whereas loss frames facilitate the use of emotion-focused coping strategies favored by shame. Frames that fit with the emotion facilitate the activation of coping strategies consistent with that emotion and consequently lead to greater fluency and message effectiveness. These effects manifest on intentions to binge drink and time spent viewing alcohol advertising.