Consumers are often mindless eaters. This research provides a framework for how consumers can become more mindful of their food choices. To do so, the authors develop an ability-based training program to strengthen people's ability to focus on goal-relevant emotional information. They demonstrate not only that emotional ability (EA) is trainable and that food choices can be enhanced (Study 1) but also that EA training improves food choices beyond a nutrition knowledge training program (Study 2). In Study 3, the authors test a conceptual model and find that EA training increases goal-relevant emotional thoughts and reduces reliance on the unhealthy = tasty intuition. Both factors mediate mindful eating effects. Last, Study 4 demonstrates the long-term benefits of EA training by showing that emotionally trained people lose more weight in a three-month period than a control group and a nutrition knowledge training group. Together, these findings suggest that consumers can gain control of their food choices through the enhancement of EA. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for policy officials, health care professionals, and marketers.

The authors develop an affect-as-information model to explain how targeted emotions used in persuasion can influence unrelated products and brands that are presented nearby. In Study 1, the presence of an emotion-eliciting image affected consumer spending on unrelated products in a simulated retail environment. In Study 2, emotional processing ability and whether consumers monitored their feelings moderated emotional transfers between unrelated advertisements, providing support for an affect-as-information model. In Studies 3 and 4, the authors use the context of evaluative conditioning to generalize the incidence of emotional contagion in persuasive communication. They manipulate salience of affect and whether brand attitudes were measured or primed to provide additional evidence for and extend affect-as-information theory.

The authors extend research on dyadic decision making by examining how relationship partners influence consumer eating patterns. Using research from relationship science and evolutionary psychology, the authors find that romantic relationship motives of formation and maintenance influence eating behaviors. Specifically, females are influenced by the eating patterns (i.e., healthiness/unhealthiness) of males when relationship formation motives are active, while males are influenced by the eating patterns of females when relationship maintenance motives are active. Furthermore, perceptions of relational influence differ between relationship formation and maintenance, which underlies these observed effects. This research contributes to the consumer behavior literature by revealing the powerful influence of relationships on food consumption.

The authors review and extend the literature on emotional ability as it impacts nonverbal communication from the perspective of potential customers and depending on sales influence techniques. They discuss four dimensions of emotional ability and highlight emotional ability's impact on four aspects of face‐to‐face interactions—consumer characteristics, salesperson characteristics, the convergence of buyer/seller emotional abilities, and environmental characteristics. They suggest areas for future research to help consumers, marketers, and health care professionals better understand how emotional ability impacts nonverbal communication, and to enhance the quality of interactions.

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The authors propose that the emotional intelligence (EI)-sales performance link can be better understood by considering a salesperson’s confidence in how they use emotions, known as emotional self-efficacy (ESE). Four multi-source studies across diverse sales industries offer evidence of the interactive effect of a salesperson’s EI and ESE – which we term emotional calibration – on salesperson performance. We find that sales performance suffers when salespeople are either overconfident or underconfident in their emotional skills and perform best when they are calibrated. Further, we demonstrate that the performance gains associated with emotional calibration (1) are attenuated when salespeople are under stress, and (2) occur because it encourages positive avoidance emotions (calmness and relaxation) among salespeople that result in improved customer rapport, but only among salespeople with relatively longer job tenures. Overall, the research highlights the critical role of ESE as an essential but neglected aspect of a salesperson’s emotional competence.

Self control has been offered as a fundamental explanation for consumption behavior in a number of marketing settings. Until recently, measurement of self control had been inadequate, with advances being made only in specific domains. Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone (2004) introduced a reflective measure of self control which has gained popularity across social science research. However, the authors did not subject this critical measure to a review of fit and function through a psychometric lens. This study reviews their measure with consideration of fit and function, applying item response theory, and more specifically, Rasch measurement. Findings suggest that moderate levels of the unidimensional construct of self control are captured by the scale but high risk groups may be neglected by the measure in its current form.

We extend evaluative conditioning research by examining how differences in emotional ability impact implicit and explicit attitude formation from conditioning. Across five studies, the ability to experience emotional information enhanced the valence of implicit attitudes toward a conditioned stimulus (CS). Conversely, the ability to reason about emotional information reduced the impact of implicit CS attitudes on subsequent explicit evaluations. Furthermore, we examine how brand familiarity and the timing of conditioned and unconditioned stimulus pairings impacts attitude formation. Implications for associative learning and persuasion are provided.