Perceived Affective Symptoms: A New Approach to Affect Patterning and Response

Abstract

This article develops a new construct, perceived affective symptoms, and investigates it in relation to emotions and response to television commercials. These symptoms, a part of affect structure having to with the somatic symptoms that individuals perceive, were operationalized in terms of a body location framework (i.e. head, throat, heart, navel and genital area), derived both from Asian ‘chakra’ and Western psychosomatic theories. Results of the study support the proposed concept of the differentiation of patterns of symptoms by individuals in response to various emotion-keyed commercials. Moreover, various symptoms for various commercials were found to be related to two dependent advertising variables: 1) attitude toward the ad and 2) the ad's ability to make one want to try the product. Finally, implications for future research are drawn.