Hypothesis

2.6.1. Reason Provided and Satisfaction

According to the literature mentioned above, impulsive buyers who experience negative emotions after purchasing will turn to their friends or acquaintances for advice or approval (Yi &

Baumgartner, 2004). They are prone to seek positive reinterpretation to reduce their regret or dissonance (Yi & Baumgartner, 2004). And consumers who received post-purchase reassurances or support would have lower dissonance and a more favorable attitude toward the products and the store they had shopped in. As a result, the article could infer that, when impulsive buyers are provided with more reasons for impulse buying, it is easier for them to reduce dissonance than those are not provided with buying reasons, and a higher satisfaction after dissonance has been reduced. Based on the above, it is hypothesized that:

H1: Impulsive consumers who are provided with more buying reason are more satisfied than those who are provided with fewer buying reasons.

1a: One reason is better than no reason.

1b: Five reasons are better than one reason.

2.6.2. Mood with Reason Provided and Satisfaction Mood with Satisfaction

Moods are feeling states that are transient and specific to certain time or situation(Gardner, 1985; Robert & Sauber, 1983), which would influence specifiable consumer behaviors(Clark &

Alice, 1982; Robert & Sauber, 1983) Positive mood seems to enhance the likelihood of expected performance and , by contrast to negative mood, make people kinder to oneself and to others(Gardner, 1985; Underwood, Moore, & Rosenhan, 1973).

Consumers will be distracted by positive mood states in the processing of information;

therefore, they will not be so critical on the judgment of products and report a higher perceived performance to consist with their good moods (Dawson et al., 1990). As previously discussed, people in a good mood may be motivated to maintain their state of well-being (Isen & Levin, 1972 ; Swinyard, 1993) and then affect their product satisfaction (Gardner, 1985). Also they will have a preferable attitude toward the store which they had selected for shopping (Swinyard, 1993). Therefore the article assumes:

H2: Consumers in a good mood will have higher satisfaction than those in a bad mood.

Mood with Reason Provided and Satisfaction

Jonas, Graupmann and Frey (2006) believed that, cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable state of affect, similar to a negative mood, which will motivate people to change their current state of mind into a more positive one. From a mood-theoretical point of view, dissonance reduction behavior would be referred to as mood repair or mood regulation (Jonas, Graupmann,

& Frey, 2006), The mood-repair approach(Isen, 1987; Jonas et al., 2006) suggests that people try

to maintain positive mood states and therefore focus on positive memories. They also try to avoid negative mood states by neglecting the memory of negative events (Isen, 1987; Jonas et al., 2006).

Thus, we can infer that a negative mood to dissonance arousal would lead to positive attitude change, such as dissonance reduction to recover good mood state, whereas positive mood decreased attitude change (Jonas et al., 2006). The dissonance can be reduced by searching for information that supports the decision and avoiding conflictive information. And supportive information to reduce dissonance is more pleasing for people in a negative mood compared to those in a positive mood (Jonas et al., 2006). Thus, supportive buying reasons to the impulsive buyers in a good mood are supposed not to be so effective on reducing dissonance as those in a bad mood.

Integrating the conceptions described above, the article supposes that mood may play as a moderator between reason provided and satisfaction. As mood states intervene between the relationships, reason provided would have different effect on satisfaction. As stated in previous literature, people tend to maintain a neutral mood to ensure coping with demanding situations (Jonas et al., 2006). If people have been in a negative mood before purchasing, adding to a more regrettable or guilty feeling after impulse buying, would necessitate a higher urge to adjust their mood to a neutral state, in case they became more depressed; however, if people are in a positive mood, they don’t have such an urgent demand to recover their affect as those in a negative mood;

thus, it may not have such a significant change on satisfaction after they are comforted by buying reasons. The study supposes that there might be some rise in satisfaction when provided reasons are increased, but not as conspicuous as for those in a negative mood. On the other hand, when impulsive buyers experience a negative mood, providing reasons may be more persuasive to help them reduce their guilty feeling or dissonance. They would increase their satisfaction

significantly as more and more reasons are provided. The previously mentioned reasoning leads to the hypothesis:

H3: Impulsive buyers in a negative mood before making a buying decision have more significant increasing post-purchase satisfaction when buying reasons are provided than those in a positive mood.

3a: One reason is better than no reason.

3b: Five reasons are better than one reason.

2.6.3. Tendency to Regret with Reason Provided and Satisfaction.

Ritov and Baron (1992) suggest that the underlying reasons for the decision making might play an important role in post-decision regret(Ritov & Baron, 1992). Consumers may incorporate the presence of a reason into their assessment and hence indicate less regret; in other words, decisions which are not backed up by good reasons are especially likely to produce regret (Inman

& Zeelenberg, 2002). Consumers with a high tendency to regret will blame themselves more (Schwartz, 2004). Therefore we can argue that providing reasons behavior would help consumers reduce regret. They may desire reasons more strongly than those with a low tendency to regret.

This is to reduce bad feeling. After being provided more reasons to purchase, the high tendency to regret consumers will feel much more relaxed and then have higher satisfaction. These notions described above will lead to the hypotheses:

H4: Impulsive buyers with a higher tendency to regret have more significant increasing satisfaction when buying reasons are provided than those with a lower tendency to regret.

4a: One reason is better than no reason.

4b: Five reasons are better than one reason.