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.

Four experiments show that emotions systematically influence judgments and persuasion by altering construal levels. Guilt-laden consumers, relative to those who were shame-laden, adopted lower levels of construal. In subsequent unrelated judgments, guilt increased reliance on feasibility over desirability attributes and emphasized secondary rather than primary features. Shame led to the opposite pattern. Guilt's tendency to draw behavior-specific appraisals activates local appraisal tendencies and endows lower construal levels, whereas shame's tendency to implicate the entire self activates global appraisal tendencies and endows consumers with higher construal levels. As a boundary condition to the core effect, the results showed that the differences between guilt and shame only held when the emotions arose from actions rather than from inaction situations. These findings provide insight into when and why guilt and shame have different effects on subsequent decisions.C onsumers frequently experience guilt or shame in daily life, stemming from engaging in unhealthy consumption behavior such as binge drinking or overeating. Since these two emotions are endemic to many harmful consumption behaviors, marketers and public policy makers frequently use these two emotions in communications to enhance persuasion.DaHee Han (dahee.han@mcgill.ca) is an assistant professor of marketing, Marketing Department,

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