Two Faces of Moral Emotions on Consumer Moral Judgments

Following the emotional cognitive appraisal theory, we show that there are two distinct emotional sources each of which distinctively influences consumers’ judgments on counterfeit luxury brands. Two negative emotions (anger and envy for Study 1) and two positive emotions (pride and gratitude for Study 2) are considered. Each participant made two moral judgments with respect to a moral-dilemma scenario, and rated his or her purchase intention of a counterfeit luxury brand. Findings of the two experimental studies show that an emotion leads to different moral judgments depending on its cognitive sources.