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Design, Procedure and Dependent Variable
Study 1b used a 3 (emotion: positive, neutral and negative) x 2 (digit: nine and zero)
between-subjects design to test the rightmost effect and employed the same experimental
procedure and dependent variable as those of Study 1a.
Stimuli
The only stimuli used for Study 1b were notebooks due to the Study 1a finding of no
significant difference between any of the products tested. Each participant was shown
advertisements displaying a regular price ($6) and a promotional price. The promotional
prices were manipulated to end in either a zero ($5.00) or a nine ($4.99). The nine-ending
prices employed in Study 1b had a dollar digit lower than the regular price dollar digit
($5.00 versus $4.99), in contrast to the nine-ending manipulation scheme used in Study 1a
in which the dollar digit ($5.60 versus $5.59) did not change. The cover story
manipulation, the advertisements, and the experimental procedure were similar to those
used in Study 1a (see Table 1).
Emotion Induction
The emotion induction method employed in this study was adapted from the methods
used by Forgas and Ciarrochi (2001) and Adaval (2003). A segment from the feature film
Pretty Woman was shown to induce happiness among the positive emotional condition
group. The film clip was 20 minutes and 22 seconds long and was chosen because
previous studies have shown that the film reliably induces happy emotions (Adaval,
2003). The participants in the negative emotional condition group were shown a clip from
the movie Ordinary People to induce sadness. The clip was 21 minutes and 45 seconds
long, and was extracted from a film which previous studies have utilized to successfully
induce sadness (Adaval, 2003). The participants were instructed to watch the film clips as
if they were watching a video at home and to become fully involved in the film. A neutral
film clip from a silent movie which served as the baseline for comparison (Lane, Reiman,
Ahern, Schwartz, and Davidson, 1997) was shown to the subjects in the control group.
Film as an emotional manipulator helps to exclude potential motivational and cognitive
preoccupations in memory (the so-called autobiographical task). The Cronbach’s alpha for
the two items measuring perceived happiness demonstrated an adequate degree of
convergence (α = .91), indicating it was appropriate to use the averaged response for the
manipulation check.
After the emotion inducement procedure had been completed, the participants were
all asked to respond to questions about the attractiveness of the transaction values of the
stimuli.